


I Only Ever Wanted You

by Terran Dowling (Enby_Entity)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Bisexual Dean, Destiel - Freeform, Drama, Eventual Happy Ending, Ex-lovers to Lovers, F/M, Fluff (eventually), Gay Castiel, Heartbreak, High School Lovers, M/M, Slow burn perhaps?, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-03-06 17:32:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 15
Words: 28,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18855748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enby_Entity/pseuds/Terran%20Dowling
Summary: Castiel is an angel of the lord; he'd just been visiting Earth to check up on it when he'd met Dean Winchester, who'd just become a freshman in high school (in Ashbourne, Massachusetts). Castiel, having been the same age, found himself unwilling to leave Earth, so he stayed and these two fell madly in love. For two years it was the greatest series of experiences, until the beginning of summer the end of their junior year, shortly after having found out he was an angel, Dean broke up with him, offering no real explanation why. Castiel could've left Earth at any time after this, but he is determined to finish out his senior year, no matter how much pain he goes through at having to see Dean every day for five days a week. This is where the story picks up: Castiel just trying to survive his first heartbreak in the hell that is high school.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> To explain the warnings and categories: underage is simply because the main characters are seventeen. It is not some freaky story where an adult is with a teenager or anything like that. Castiel is literally a teenager angel in this universe. I hope that puts you at ease. Other than that, this story is a mild one. There *may* be a sex scene or some sort of smut here and there. The worst thing you're gonna see in this story is the swearing, honestly. (I'm sorry if you come here looking for smut; I usually deal more with fluff/angst than the sexual aspects of these things).
> 
> As for the categories I only tagged F/M because Dean is bisexual in this and has a brief relationship with a girl, plus there is his parents' relationship even though that really has nothing to do with this story.

Cas stared at the entrance to the school as if he was facing a monster. That’s how it felt to him, anyway. It wasn’t the doors themselves that were the threat really; it was what…or rather _whom_ …existed beyond them.

Dean Winchester. He’d once been Cas’ whole world, was now a stranger, and the very sight of caused immense chest pain which Cas had learned was purely emotional, not a life-threatening physical condition. Still, the pain had not let up over the summer as he’d hoped, instead having doubled in force somehow. It was getting even worse as he stood here. How much worse would it get once he was actually inside that building?

“You gotta go in sometime, kid,” Charlie Bradbury, his best friend, said as she stood by his side. Students herded around past them, reluctantly going into the building for their eight hour shift of pure boredom.

Anger overcame him; not for her, of course, but for _him_. _He_ had caused this.

“I am an angel of the lord, god damn it,” Cas growled, “and yet here I stand, unable to do a simple thing as go through some damn doorway.”

Charlie (also a fellow angel), placed a soothing hand upon his shoulder.

“Remember what we vowed this summer, Cas?”

Cas recalled it perfectly:

“We shall not let the messy emotions deter us from anything.” He cast a sideways glance at her and didn’t say what he was thinking:

_You’ve no idea what heartbreak feels like, though. Or what it feels like knowing the cause is so close. Or feeling the anxiety because you know, you just know, as bad as it is without them around, it’s a thousand times worse when you have to see them._

She smiled at him, missing his subtle body language.

“So, let’s go!”

He sighed. He really didn’t have a choice so he led the way.

One step past those doors, many steps far sooner than he’d realized it would happen, he saw him. Now, that alone would’ve been tolerable if Cas hadn’t _also_ seen the pretty brunette haired girl making out with him. Had they planned this? Had they known _just_ when he’d walk in? He realized he was being paranoid, of course they hadn’t known. That was ridiculous. Either way, his heart was absolutely screaming in agony, and he couldn’t handle this.

Not this. Not right now.

When he tried to turn around to go back out, however, he couldn’t. A swarm of kids had just arrived off one of the later buses and by the time he’d thought to escape they’d been at the door trying to get in before they were late. He was trapped in here…and all available paths were blocked by teenagers…all but one, that is.

The one that would make him walk right past _them_.

“Charlie…” His breathing turned into short pants as the pain just continued to increase. Was he literally having a heart attack? That’s what it felt like.

“Come on,” she grabbed his arm, shoved her way to their left through the crowd of now-annoyed teenagers and released him once they were through into the hallway that had been behind those kids.

His breathing didn’t level out.

“Charlie!” He panicked.

“Okay, okay, you need to just. Uhm. Breathe.”

“I _am_.”

“You. Gah! What’d they say about this? Uhmmm.” She grabbed her phone to look it up, realizing, he saw, that she had no idea what to search. “What is it you’re going through?”

“How...in the hell…am I…supposed t-oh god…know?!” Instinct told him to lean forward and place his hands on his knees. It didn’t really help. “Charlie, _please!_ ”

“Okay! I got it! It says here you’re having what is called an anxiety attack. Or a panic attack. I’m not actually sure the difference but! It says to calm this you need to force your breathing to a slower rate. Inhale slowly, hold for a few seconds, exhale slowly, hold for a few seconds, inhale, etc.” She looked up from her phone with wide, panicked eyes and watched, anxiously, as Cas tried this.

It, amazingly, actually began to work.

Within a few minutes he felt he could breathe fine once more, and the despair he’d felt had calmed down a little, leaving him, unfortunately, to feel the full effects of the new fracture in his already damaged heart. He put his hand over his chest and grimaced, wishing he could ask Charlie to heal the pain away. He couldn’t because this wasn’t physical; it was purely psychological; angels can’t heal psychological issues with their powers.

He began to realize he felt weak so he carefully got on the floor, and hugged his legs to his chest, his face buried against them. How the motherfuck was he supposed to get through every day five days a week like this?!

“I can’t do this,” he said miserably, his voice coming out muffled. He sensed a movement beside him and realized it had been Charlie settling onto the floor next to him when she put her arms around him in a hug.

“I see now how hard this is for you, but unfortunately you’ve no choice, hon.”

“Did you see her?”

A second of silence and then:

“Yeah, I saw her.” Her tone was real quiet. He knew that tone; she was furious.

He took a deep breath and let it out, the last of the despair gone…for now.

“Now what?” He asked, leaning his head back against the lockers behind him.

As if to answer his question, the first bell of the day rang. Charlie let out a half-laugh as she got to her feet.

“Saved by the bell, I guess,” she commented, holding out her hand to help him up. He took it in silence, hugged his friend for here they must part, and went on his way, head down, towards his first class of the day. If he ever neared _them_ he never saw, determined to avoid this knowledge at all costs.

 

This tactic worked real well for him for most of that morning until, just like that, it _majorly_ backfired on him. He had lucked out with his classes so far: no Dean, _and_ no girlfriend of his, about which he was feeling pretty good. It was when he’d thought he might not have to see Dean at all this year when he’d run into someone as he’d attempted to enter a classroom (he’d been looking at the floor instead of up into the classroom). When he looked up to see who he’d run into, his heart just about died on the spot.

Dean.

In his surprise, he’d blurted the name aloud, and for a split second, a _second_ , he’d seen the expression in Dean’s face soften as it often had whenever Cas had said his name. For a second, Cas had flashed back to what it’d been like when those eyes had looked at him with nothing but complete love and adoration. Then the second was gone and those eyes went back to being empty.

Cas’ heart let out one of the loudest wails it'd ever done since the breakup.

Dean murmured his name in reply then just stared at him, far too close for comfort. Neither said anything else, but Cas knew if either one of them didn’t move in the next two seconds, he was apt to turn around and run away to the nearest bathroom to have yet another breakdown. He’d had many over the summer, all because of one damn human…a human _teenager_ , of all things, and that damn teenager was doing it again.

He was determined not to let this happen, so he pushed onward, headed straight to the back corner of the class room (as far away from Dean as he could possibly get) and sat down, refusing to look up from the desk (lest Dean be watching him from the doorway with those damned expressive green eyes of his) until the bell rang. Once it did, he figured he was safe and cautiously looked up. He was right; Dean was gone.

That ache (now more of a sharp pain) however…

As this was a study hall, Cas put his head on his arms atop the desk and closed his eyes. He couldn’t breathe right again, it was like all the air in the room had been severely diminished. He just wanted to go home.

 

Lunchtime arrived. Charlie had this period with him and she’d noted immediately how quiet he was. He picked at the food he’d normally eat to pretend he was as human as the teenagers surrounding him; his mind was a million miles away in happier times which was basically self-torture, but he had no energy to fight it today. He watched as the memories came and went, like mini movie scenes. He hadn’t realized he’d started crying until a hand touched his face, slamming him back into reality. Charlie was staring with great concern again, which brought his attention to the tears on his cheeks.

“Oh,” he said absent-mindedly, wiping the moisture away. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not,” Charlie said, catching a new one that escaped down his left cheek before withdrawing her hand, “but you will be.”

He shrugged, fought the new tears that wanted out at her words, and opted for staring out the window. Would he truly feel fine someday? That seemed very doubtful.

Dean showed up towards the end of that period, holding hands with his girlfriend (not unexpected since, ya know, they were dating, but…still). Dean glanced his way for a moment but didn’t hold the gaze, turning his attention onto her. Cas found himself beginning to wonder who she was.

“What a bitch,” Charlie muttered. Cas realized she’d been glaring at them the entire time. While part of him felt love for her for this defense, most of him was strangely of a more humble nature all of a sudden.

“I’m sure she’s a nice girl,” he said.

Charlie looked at him as if he had three heads.

“Excuse me?”

“Dean broke up with me; it’s no shock he moved on.”

Charlie continued to stare at him as if he had three heads.

“Cas, you do realize it’s perfectly fine if you hate her guts?”

He shrugged and returned to staring out the window.

“That’s fine,” Charlie amended, “Just fine; I’ll hate her enough for the both of us. No worries, I got this.”

Cas found one corner of his lips turning up a little. He loved it when Charlie was defensive, it was always very comforting.

Unfortunately that was the last comforting moment he had that day. As fate would have it, the last four classes of the day he shared with Dean, two of which he shared with Dean _and_ his new girlfriend. By the end of that last class, Cas couldn’t help but notice just _how close_ the pair were, and found himself wondering just how long they’d even been together.

By the time he got home, he was nearly obsessed about it, his mind the greatest torture device ever to exist, it would seem. He found the answer he sought fast enough, and in that same second severely regretted ever searching for it in the first place, having gotten far more than he’d ever bargained for.


	2. Chapter 2

He found the answer on Instagram, and yes this meant going back many months through his ex’s profile, which Cas felt the most embarrassed about doing but he just… _he had to know_. Dean had always been one to broadcast his relationships; he was a proud lover that one, and sure enough, he’d made a post about when he’d first gotten together with the girl Cas now knew as Anna Milton.

On June 24th, 2019.

Two weeks to the _day_ after he’d broken up with Cas. Two weeks!

…Two weeks?

_TWO FUCKING WEEKS?!_

Cas only barely avoided throwing his laptop as he let out a scream so unlike him, followed by one of the worst breakdowns he’d ever experienced. If it’d been hard enough to breathe at school, it was damned near impossible now.

 Charlie, who lived with him, had heard the scream and had come in to find this angel curled around his laptop on top the bed sobbing so hard she was convinced he was going to shatter apart. She tried asking what had happened but he was far too upset to answer her; oh, how it tore at her heart to see him like this. She did the only thing left that she could do, which was join him on the bed and hold him until he got this out of his system.

Cas was grateful for the support, though it still took too long for this particular fit of anguish to pass.

“Two weeks,” he mumbled. “Two fucking god damn _weeks_.”

“What’s that, honey?” Charlie asked.

Cas sniffled, feeling more tears start to come back.

“He got…he…” oh god, round two. Unable to even speak, Cas shoved the laptop towards her and focused on trying to just fucking _breathe_ through this. Humans dealt with this on a regular basis? More than once? _Why?!_ Why would they ever risk going through this again the moment it happened?! He sure as hell wasn’t going to. Soon as this year was over, he was done with Earth, done with humans, done with these stupid, fucking emotions.

Charlie was very confused about why Cas had shoved his laptop towards her, but on intuition she opened it and discovered what he’d seen to trigger him. Fury enveloped her as anguish had enveloped Cas.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” She screeched. Unlike Cas’ control, she lost hers and threw the laptop against the wall. Cas bolted upright as it shattered apart and fell to the floor.

“God damn it, Charlie!” He yelled. “I NEEDED THAT.”

Realizing what she’d just done, she closed her eyes and groaned out an apology, swearing to get him another one.

He knew she would; it wasn’t the first time she’d broken something of his, but still. He heaved a sigh and forced himself off the bed. At least he had something to distract him.

“Where are you going?”

“ _We_ are going to best buy where _you_ are going to buy me another fucking laptop. Now.” He stormed out of the room, Charlie hurrying behind to catch up to him. Outside is where they split up. He needed to fly, needed to spread his wings, feel the rush of the air. Charlie decided to drive there, because while it was rather secluded here where they were, it would not be at the store, and they needed to be inconspicuous. She knew Cas would land not at the store, but in the woods nearby, and then walk to it. She also knew he needed this, so she let him go, saying it’d be about thirty minutes before she arrived there. She watched as those magical wings unfolded and he took off on a little run before they hoisted him into the air.

“Someday, hon, this will all be a thing of the past,” she murmured at him, knowing he could still hear her.

Cas said nothing in reply.

The following day at school, a Tuesday, he saw them again, same spot as they’d been yesterday, and all at once, he had to have answers.

“Cas,” Charlie warned, “don’t.”

“I have to.”

“Cas…Cas. Ca-oh, shit!” She went after him, just knowing she’d need to pull him off of Dean.

Cas was on a mission, this time not from God. He reached the pair and after getting Dean’s attention, he laid one right against the guy’s jaw while screaming out:

“ _HOW COULD YOU?!”_

The lobby fell dead silent as Dean recovered, temper flaring in his green eyes as he held a hand to his jaw.

“What the fuck is the matter with you?!” He shot back.

“Two weeks?!” He saw Dean recognize exactly what he was talking about. “Really, Dean?! You just couldn’t fucking wait to move on?! I was that bad?!”

“It’s not that, Cas!”

“Really! Coulda fooled me!” He went to go hit Dean again, this time  stopped by Charlie. If only barely.

Dean approached, eyes flaring.

“Listen to me, you fuckshit, the world does not revolve around you. _My_ world doesn’t revolve around you! There’s no god damn time limit for these things. I don't _have_ to spend months miserable and alone just because we didn't work out! If that's how you wanna go, well have the fuck at it. I am not you.”

“There is common decency you…you…assbutt!”

Laughter rippled around them.

“Cas, come on,” Charlie murmured in his ear. “You’re making things worse.”

Heaving, close to tears yet again, Cas had one more question.

“Did I ever actually mean _anything_ to you?”

Dean’s temper died instantly and what Cas saw tore another fracture in his heart: Dean really _had_ loved him. But he didn’t now.

Lips trembling, Cas said:

“Fuck you, Dean.”

“Go to hell,” Dean replied coldly, “and get the fuck over yourself.”

“Apparently that’s easy to do,” Cas snarled back.

Cas yanked out of Charlie’s grasp, roughly shouldered his way past Dean, and took off at a jog towards his locker, tears already spilling over. Charlie had been right; he had made things worse…for himself.

That night after he got home, he went to all his social media and blocked Dean. He was hard pressed to never, ever talk to him again, no matter what.

 

Dean wanted so _badly_ to tell Cas the truth the very moment Cas had confronted him. There were things Cas didn’t know, that the poor guy deserved to know. Cas was looking worse for the wear; even though he didn’t sleep, he looked _tired_. There were actual bags beneath his eyes. And oh god, his eyes! They’d been so haunted, so betrayed. Dean had so desperately wanted to say to him _yes! I loved you. I adored you. You meant everything to me. You still do. Cas, I still love you_. He wanted to go right over, take that beautiful face in his hands and kiss the pain away. But he couldn’t. He just.

He couldn’t.

That hurt most of all.

That night, he discovered Cas had cut off all modes of communication. Cas was officially out of his life; they had won. It took him a long time to get to sleep that night, unable as he was to stop the tears that came.


	3. Chapter 3

The rest of the week was radio silence between the two, who wouldn’t even so much as look at each other. Charlie was caught in the middle with no way to reconcile either of them and desperate to do so.

In other news, there was a big dance coming up on Friday, the “Back To School” dance for all grades. For Sophomores through seniors it was more of a _welcome-back_ dance while for Freshmen it was a _welcome-to-high-school_ dance. Usually people had a lot of fun, but Cas was determined not to be one of them, because he knew just who’d be there.

Charlie was desperately trying to get him to go.

“Ple-e-e-e-a-a-a-se, Cas?! Please???”

“No,” he said without looking up. It was Wednesday afternoon, they were sitting under their tree in the park where they liked to do their homework if the weather was nice enough, like it was today (in the high sixties with clear blue skies and a light wind).

“I know why not but, why not??”

He looked up at her finally, confused by her statement.

“If you know why not, why are you asking me why not?”

“Because there’s more to it than them.”

“There really isn’t, Charlie. They’re gonna be there. They’re gonna dance. I’m gonna be alone. The whole damn school does not need my loneliness displayed any more than it already is. It’d be fucking pathetic if I showed up alone.”

“You won’t be alone, you’d have me.” She looked hurt.

“You know what I mean, Charlie. I love you, and I want to go with you for you but it’s not the same. This is the _first dance_ of the year. There are…expectations.”

Charlie put on her famous pouting expression and all at once it was everything he could do not to cave right in. He _hated_ that look. It cut right through him.

“Charlie, that is not fucking fair.”

“Ple-e-e-e-a-a-a-a-se??” She whined. “For me?” The pout doubled in force. “Please??”

He heaved a sigh/groan, rolled his eyes, and said:

“Alright. Fine.”

Charlie squeaked and hugged him, thanking him by peppering the side of his face with kisses. Unable to help it, he let out a laugh.

“Alright, alright, you got what you wanted. Now let me do my homework.”

“Buzzkill,” she teased affectionately, still so excited she was bouncing in place.

Cas smiled down at the homework that was sitting in his lap. He was doomed to be miserable Friday night but at least his best friend was happy. That’s what was important, anyway.

Thursday slid on by without any incidents, but Friday…Friday held a surprise. It happened just after lunch, during science lab (lab and gym alternated every day) and when the teacher left them on their own to do the work, Cas who was working alone as usual, was visited by someone. At first he didn’t glance up, thinking it was some jock there to make fun of him as he tried to work. 

“Cas.”

Cas started so hard at hearing Dean's voice that he knocked a cylinder off his table and only barely managed to catch it in time. The teacher sent him a smile that said _thank you_. Cas hoped the teacher knew how sorry he was that this had even happened in the first place; he was notorious about making sure nothing broke during his labs.

Cas didn’t answer Dean once he’d calmed down, and pretended like he was focusing upon the lab work even though his focus was now completely shot.

“Cas, please, we need to talk.”

 _We really don’t_ , Cas thought at him, staying firm in his resolve to not speak to Dean Winchester.

“Dean?” His girlfriend called out, making Cas wince unintentionally. “I can't do this alone.”

 _Yeah, go back to your whore,_ Cas thought bitterly, a random imagining of Dean fucking her in a janitor’s closet flooding his mind all at once. He realized he was being unnecessarily harsh towards her. She hadn’t _deliberately_ broken them up. For all he knew, she was probably a really sweet woman, and the way he was acting towards her wasn’t fair.

He broke his vow of silence, hoping it would get rid of the guy.

“Go back to her,” was all he said, in a tone completely devoid of all emotion. He heard Dean’s sharp intake of breath, and knew it had nothing to do with what he’d said.

Dean let out the breath a lot shakier than he’d inhaled it.

“I want you to know I’m sorry for hurting you like this.”

Cas clenched his jaw _and_ both of his hands, and upon seeing this, Dean finally heeded his wishes. Once he was alone, Cas did some breathing exercises, shut off his emotions, and threw himself into the lab work. It took everything he had just to do that, and it drained him.

At home later that afternoon, he tried to convince Charlie to let him back out. She wasn’t having it.

“No, Cas, you promised me!”

“I know I did, but Charlie, he was _there_ today. During chem. _He was there_. He apologized.”

Charlie, trying to find the perfect outfit for tonight, turned from the mirror where she’d been holding up an outfit, and stared at Cas with wide, disbelieving eyes.

“He did what?”

“He said he’s sorry for hurting me.”

“Oh my god!” Planning forgotten, she tossed the outfit onto a chair next to the mirror and went to sit next to Cas on her bed. “What’d you do?”

“I didn’t do anything. They were just words. They didn’t make a damned bit of difference. The pain is still there. He can be sorry all he fucking wants, it doesn’t change what he’s done, and what he continues to do. And now that's just adding insult to injury if I go to that damned dance tonight.”

“You are fucking going, Cas, deal with it. You might meet someone.”

Cas barked out a laugh.

“Oh, _sure_ let’s go through all of this shit again. Why not?!”

She returned to her planning.

“Fine, you only have to stay for an hour, okay?”

Cas groaned and fell backwards onto her bed. There was never changing Charlie’s mind once she made it; he should’ve known better than to try.

An hour?

…Maybe he could make it.

 

He took one step into that gym and realized…

“I’m not going to make it.”

Charlie needn’t have asked why, the answer was obvious. Right in the center of the gym, circled by everyone else who’d given them just enough space (they were a popular couple), were Dean and Anna, dancing closely together, heads resting on each other’s shoulders.

It wasn’t that much of a leap for Cas to remember when that’d been him in those arms, resting his head over that shoulder, hearing Dean whisper his love, feeling those arms tighten when Cas whispered it back, sharing a kiss afterwards. Now all of that was just...gone. 

Tears abruptly blinded Cas and he tried to run out. Charlie caught him instead and pulled him in tight against her, facing him away from them and swaying with the music.

“Charlie,” Cas choked.

“You’re okay,” she said fiercely. “Bad start, it’s okay. You’re okay.” She stroked his hair. “Force your mind elsewhere. What makes you happy?”

As he slowly listed things that made him feel better, he started to actually feel better. The tears stopped as fast as they’d started.

She eased back from him, and laid a kiss right on his lips, shocking the ever living hell out of him and, for a moment, causing a great panic (because he’d forgotten she was a lesbian).

“Wh…”

“You needed to be shocked out of the moment.”

Cas continued to stare at her with wide eyes.

“Well. That’d do it.” When he turned and looked back at the pair, he discovered it didn’t hurt nearly as bad. He understood.

“Thanks, Charlie,” he said earnestly, looking back at her. “But uh. Now what?”

“Now we go and get some drinks.” She led him by the hand towards the lobby where punch was being doled out.

“And after the drinks?”

“We dance.”

It seemed pointless but he supposed he could give it a try. About ten minutes in, Charlie was on her own and Cas was sitting on the bleachers by himself, staring at the floor. He hadn't been able to dance another second; all energy was depleted. He hadn't let yet only because he still had half an hour before he could go. After all, he'd promised Charlie.

 

Dean hated seeing Cas sitting alone like that; desperately wanting to go over and offer him a dance; but it’d be too awkward. Too many questions would be asked. And if his parents should ever find out he’d danced with him…

“God,” Dean whispered, seeing all the damage he was doing to the guy who was the least deserving of it. He hated himself for it. He hated being so damned trapped, unable to change things. If he made so much as one move to reconcile with Cas and it worked, he would doom Cas’ life. This path may be one full of misery and heartbreak but at least this one kept Cas alive, and that was the important thing. He must remember that; no matter how desperate he was to kiss Cas, to hold him, to love him again. He must live with this, and move forward.

As if the universe was agreeing with him, his girlfriend returned with their drinks, smiling at him as she handed his to him and then gave him a kiss. Dean cast one more longing look Cas’ way only to discover that Cas was no longer alone. His mind went on high alert.


	4. Chapter 4

Cas had felt the person sit next to him and had assumed it was Dean.

“Go away, Dean,” he said tiredly. Just five minutes more…

“I would,” a voice—not Dean’s—responded, “except my name is not Dean.”

Cas looked up, horrified, into the darkest brown eyes he’d ever seen; they captured him instantly. He also noticed the lush, short, wavy brown hair the guy had. Part of Cas felt a desire to run his hands through it. 

“I am so sorry. I thought…uhm.”

“You thought I was Dean,” the guy chuckled, “yeah, that was a given. Based on the amount of anger and pain in your tone, I assume this is an ex who’s hurt you.”

Cas looked away. He didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

“This also explains why a cute guy like you is sitting alone on a night like this.”

 _Cute guy like me?_ Cas wondered.

He realized that had been a flirtation.

He barely held back a groan; it’d been hard enough navigating the beginning stages of romance with Dean and look where that’d gotten him. He wasn’t doing it again.

“My best friend wanted to come and I couldn’t say no, and she promised I’d have to be here only for an hour which is almost up so.” Cas started to stand.

“I know how you feel,” the guy said.

Cas looked at him, surprised. Sure, other people had heartbreaks but in this school? It seemed like he was the only person left single and miserable.

The guy stood up as well.

“I understand your pain, I'm going through something similar myself, and I admire you for your bravery tonight. Which one is Dean?”

Cas turned before realizing he was even doing it, and once more was assaulted by Dean and his girlfriend romancing it up in here. He immediately looked down at the floor, doing so blinding him from seeing the new guy moving his way towards Dean.

The next thing he knew…

“HEY FUCKTURD.”

Cas looked up in time to see new guy clocking Dean so hard Dean lost his balance and fell to the floor. His girlfriend started screaming at him (the guy) but by then the guy’s back was to her as he made his way back to Cas, grinning.

Cas had to admit that’d been pretty satisfying.

“Why’d you do that?” he asked the guy.

“Because. He hurt you. He deserved it.”

“Well. Yes. But. _Why_? Why would you do that for me? We literally just met a second ago. I don’t…” he realized belatedly: “well, I don’t even know your name.”

The guy extended his hand out.

“My apologies, I’ve been rude. Adam Whittaker.”

Cas looked at the hand that had taken out his ex for him, a total stranger, and felt a smidgen of pride shaking it as he met those eyes again.

“Castiel.”

Adam regarded him expectantly for a moment, then realized that was literally all there was to it.

“Do you have a last name?”

Cas shook his head.

“That’s interesting. Do you have parents?”

 _Yeah, one, an asshole in Heaven,_ Cas thought.

“Nope. It’s just me and Charlie.”

“Who’s Charlie?”

“My best friend. She and I live together rent-free thanks to a sympathetic landlord. They bring us weekly groceries and any other things we desire.”

“Ahh! I remember you mentioned she’s the reason you’re here. Well. I’m Adam, as I just told you. I’m new here, just transferred in. I start Monday but I’d heard about this dance and just _had_ to come. So far it’s been a major let down.”

Cas laughed at that, unable to help it. The dances here always sucked.

“Yeah, their planning committee sucks.”

“I’ll say.” Adam studied Cas’ face for a moment, then asked: “Would you like to get out of here and go someplace better?”

Cas knew the dangers of leaving with someone he didn’t know, but he had a feeling Adam would never hurt him…unlike someone else he knew.

“I’d love to.”

They walked out together, chatting all the while. Cas was comfortable with Adam.

 

Dean saw the pair talking, and just as the jealousy was starting to get to him, the new guy was bee lining for him. Why he had yelled out at him when he’d been looking…Cas looked up at the yell and suddenly Dean understood too much. He hadn’t been able to get out so much as a word before the punch landed and he was knocked off his feet. His girlfriend started screaming at the guy until Dean told her he was fine, at which point she stopped and helped him to his feet. As he watched, he saw the worst thing happen:

Cas started to open up to the guy.

“Cas, baby, don’t trust him,” Dean murmured.

“What?” Anna asked him.

He glanced at her, “Oh, nothing,” and went back to looking at Cas just in time to see him leaving with the guy.

Dean’s heart lurched. Something was…wrong…here. He could just feel it.

 

Cas was led to the lake nearby, and as he and Adam took off their shoes and socks, rolled up their pant legs, and sat down at the edge of the dock, memories of his time here with Dean overcame him, from the many kisses shared, to the swimming, to the very first time Cas had gotten and delivered a blow job… which he remembered so vividly…

_They’d been sitting right at the edge, feet in the water, sun shining down on them, making out. Dean’s hand had already been in Cas' jeans, rubbing one out when all of a sudden he pulled away and asked if Cas had ever gotten a blowjob._

_Cas had never even heard of this term, which Dean had found astounding. Then a grin had come across his face along with a look of determination._

_“You’re about to find out,” he stated, then paused in his unzipping of Cas’ jeans, “that is…if you want to.”_

_Hard and wanting a release anyway he could get it, Cas was more than open to finding out. He watched, arousal increasing as Dean stripped him of his bottoms, and then…incredibly, took him into his mouth. A gasp escaped his lips as the new sensations overran all other senses. Having already been about halfway there to begin with, this new experience had taken him to full orgasm in a matter of minutes. He’d tried to warn Dean in time but hadn’t quite gotten there. Dean waited as Cas finished out in his mouth, then withdrew and actually swallowed the contents._

_Cas stared with wide eyes, sure Dean was going to be upset with him for something so…gross. Instead, Dean smiled. Smiled!_

_“And that’s how that’s done,” he stated._ C _as was astounded. Then he learned how to do one himself, which he must've done right because Dean had moaned so loud-_

“Cas!” Adam exclaimed, snapping his fingers right next to Cas’ ear.

Cas flinched at the pain the sound had caused.

“That hurt,” He said, blinking in confusion as his mind reoriented in reality. “Wh…”

Adam chuckled. “We were talking and all of a sudden your expression just went completely blank. You seemed to shut down and then uh…a friend joined us.” He pointedly glanced down at Castiel’s crotch and back up again. “What were you thinking about?”

Cas sighed, rubbing his face for a second while trying to chase the lingering memories.

“Just…some experiences that happened here is all,” he said as he dropped his hands into his lap and stared out at the lake instead of at Adam. He felt horribly embarrassed.

“Dean was a meaningful one, wasn’t he?”

Cas nodded. Dean had been his first…for everything. They weren’t kidding when they said you don’t forget that.

“We can go somewhere else, if you’d like.”

Cas shook his head.

“There’s no place we could go where he and I haven’t touched in some way.”

Adam looked down at his hands.

“That must be tough. I got to leave my old life behind. You’re stuck here until you graduate.”

Cas only nodded. It truly did suck.

Moving on from this, Cas gradually warmed up again to Adam, opening up to him about many things he’d only ever opened up to Dean about. Adam was an amazing listener, and so supportive. He was kind, sweet, gentle, he didn't judge, he really seemed to care for Cas even though they’d just met. By the time it was nearing midnight and they needed to go home, Cas found himself asking Adam if they could hang out again. Adam immediately said yes, that he’d love that, and they exchanged digits to talk tomorrow and maybe plan some stuff together. Then they’d parted ways and Cas headed home feeling…well…not _better_ but that it was possible after all for him to get there.

Saturday and Sunday he spent with Adam. They went to the water park on Saturday, having a blast there. They went to the mall on Sunday and spent a great deal laughing over the littlest things; it’d felt so good to laugh again. Throughout both days, and most of the evenings through text, they continuously talked. They never ran out of things to talk about. Be it their interests, their dislikes, movies they’ve seen, movies they wish to see, places they'd been, places they wanted to go, weird things they liked, weird phobias, favorite scents, other favorites like that, books they'd loved reading, etc.

Cas was actually looking forward to going to school on Monday for the first time since...well...since he’d been with Dean.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of this chapter is from Dean's POV (in case that wasn't clear when you read it).

Over the following weeks, Dean watched as Cas slowly began to heal, all because of some other _guy_. Oh, the jealousy _alone_ was enough to keep him up most nights, especially when Cas had started coming to school holding the guy’s hand, but there was something else nagging at Dean. Namely the way this guy just suddenly appeared out of thin air and went _straight_ to Cas. He didn’t talk to anyone else, he had focused solely on Cas. Even after having been here for about a month, the guy hadn’t made any other friends, or even tried. He was in many of Dean's classes, which meant Dean got to observe him, and he [Dean] didn’t like anything he saw. The guy...Adam, Dean recalled now...was secretive, jumpy whenever someone was near, and he was almost always texting, even during class (granted most teenagers did that but…gah). Dean just…he had a really bad feeling about this guy.

So he went to try to dig up some information on him, and soon enough found far more than he'd bargained for. Adam Whittaker, born in a rural town in Kansas, was known from the age of 12 to have battled supernatural beings with his parents with great success. When they died a few years ago, Adam continued the hunt on his own, saving town after town across the continental United States. You could say he was continuing the Family Business. He worked alone but had many resources available to him so there was never a supernatural creature he met that he didn’t ultimately kill. He is named, in the southwest, as America’s Greatest Protector.

So why was he _here?_ Did he know Cas was a Supernatural being? It certainly tracked, especially with the way he’d gone right for Cas, but…how had he known?? Nobody but Dean kn...

…Wait a minute.

His parents…

All at once, panic overrode him and he was dashing down the stairs to the living room where his parents were chilling on the couch.

“WHO DID YOU TELL?!” Dean roared at them.

They calmly turned off the TV and looked at him without emotion. They were like that.

“About what?” His father, John, replied to him.

“About Cas! Who the fuck did you tell?!”

“Well, honey,” his mother, Mary, chimed in, “we were concerned about you so of course we went to our best friends about this issue. I mean…it’s one thing being gay—”

“I’m bisexual,” Dean said through clenched teeth.

“Gay,” his mother pressed, “which was a battle all on its own but to find out you were being gay with an _angel?_ ”

“I mean, come on, Dean, who the hell has ever heard of a gay angel? It’s ridiculous!” John commented.

It took Dean everything he had not to start shouting out very _personal_ details about his love life with Cas. There was most _definitely_ a thing as gay angels, without a fucking doubt. How many times had Cas been the one to initiate the lovemaking? How many times had Cas gone down on him in public (hidden from any prying eyes of course) because he’d gotten overwhelming desire to please him? How many times had Cas moaned out his name over and over in a night and spent the next week or so looking at him like he was the world’s greatest treasure? How many times??

No such thing as gay angels, his ass (which literally knew this truth better than anything else), and anyways…not the main problem here.

“Did you tell them not to tell anyone else?”

His parents shared look of confusion that answered his question.

“Oh, great! So pretty much everyone knows he’s an angel! I thought you said you weren’t going to kill him! You fucking _promised!_ I held up my end of the deal, you assholes!”

“Dean, that is no way to talk to us!” John snapped at him.

Dean stood his ground.

“You _promised me_ that if I left him, if I destroyed his trust in me, if I took the thing he’d placed so gingerly in my care, the thing I had sworn to protect and cherish, and _broke_ it, that you’d not kill him! If you’ve gone and blabbered to god-knows-who that there’s an angel in town, a teenage angel, mind you, you heartless fucks, you’ve broken your god damned promise to me!"

“DEAN, THAT IS ENOUGH!” His father roared, getting to his feet. “I will not, for one second more, tolerate this damned attitude of yours! I don’t know what the fuck has gotten into you, but you need to take a god damned step back and realize we were only protecting you! This is for the best!”

“Did you ever stop to think about how _I_ would feel with all of this?!” Tears in his eyes, he looked at both parents. “You think angels can’t fall in love. They can’t have emotions. Fine. Whatever. But _I_ can, _I_ do. Did you ever fucking think of how much it would hurt me to do this?! Do you even fucking care how this is killing me inside?! I fucking fell in love with him! I poured every fucking thing I had into that relationship! And now I go to find out that you basically didn’t mean jack shit about what you promised, so I’ve gone and torn both his and my hearts out for no fucking real reason! God! The very thing I did to protect his life has only endangered it further! And now he fucking hates me! This attitude you’re seeing, Dad? It’s called _rage_. AND I HAVE EVERY GOD DAMNED RIGHT TO FEEL IT!” He turned and stormed on out of there, slamming the door closed behind him so hard something fell over inside and broke. He was spiraling in his anger.

How could they? _How could they??!_ On the one hand, he wasn’t surprised. They were hunters, and they never fucking saw the gray area in these things. None of them did. To them, Cas was just another being to kill. They were scared of _this thing_ , so of course it must be taken down because we just can’t have stuff exist that scares us, god fucking forbid!

Letting out a scream, Dean turned and punched a nearby tree. As the pain flared in his hand, the last of his temper died out and rage was replaced with fear. He had to save Cas. He had to tell him _now_ that his life was in danger.

_Think. Think! Where would Cas be right now? It’s about five in the afternoon on a Tuesday._

When they’d been together, Cas had always called him to ask if he wanted to hang out, and Dean, of course, had always said yes. It had changed where they’d gone, though. And besides, Dean was no longer in the picture. He had no _idea_ what Cas would do on his own at this time.

“Damn it!” He snarled. “How the hell am I supposed to save his damn life?!”

_Okay, Dean, breathe. You got time. I’m sure Adam wouldn’t kill him right away. He sometimes likes to draw out the kill. Maybe this is one of those times._

_Charlie! Charlie might know!_

_But…will she tell me, of all people?_

_I have to try._

_He’s my everything, **I have to try**._

At Cas and Charlie’s house, Dean almost lost his nerve. He hadn’t spoken to Charlie since the incident and it took no rocket scientist to know she’d want to kill him on the spot for what he’d done to Cas. It was deserved, of course, but…still. He’d need to be careful.

He started with a knock (for where else could he have begun?). The one who answered was not the one who he’d been expecting.

 

Cas, alone in the house for the afternoon, heard the knock on the front door just as he passed it on his way to the kitchen for a snack. He couldn’t taste their food and yet eating it was a sort of comfort, it was weird. Anyway, that plan put on hold for now, he doubled back and opened the door. His heart about stopped.

“Dean??"

Dean looked just as shocked as he felt.

“Uh. Hi. Uhm.”

A month with Adam had dulled things considerably. It no longer burned him to no end to see Dean this close. He was mostly just on a simmering-anger setting these days.

“What are you doing here?”

Dean swallowed, nervous.

“I was actually looking for Charlie, but uhm, this works even better.” Dean seemed to be gathering some courage. “Listen, Cas, there’s something you need to know. About Adam. But it’s a really long sto—”

“Gonna stop you there,” Cas interrupted. “No. I’m not doing this with you.”

“D…Doing what?” Dean asked.

“This, Dean. This where you tell me some bullshit story about how Adam is actually _really_ bad and that you’re doing this to protect me. You’re just jealous. Get the fuck over it. What was it you said to me in September? Oh yeah. _My world doesn’t fucking revolve around you_. You made your choice, now fucking deal with it.” Cas slammed the door in Dean’s face, took a breath, and continued with his plan for a snack, pretending like Dean had not just stopped by to try to _actually_ break him and Adam up. Far as Cas was concerned, he had never stopped on his way to the kitchen.

“God damn it!” Dean snarled, wanting to punch something again but fighting it this time. His hand still hurt; it was likely sprained.

“What the hell are _you_ doing here?” Charlie said behind him, no more enthused at seeing him than Cas had been.

Dean whirled, blessing his luck.

“Charlie, good, you’re home, I really need to talk to you. It’s about Cas’ safety.”

Charlie, unlike Cas, listened to Dean as he explained about Adam. At first he’d seen her start to shut him down as Cas had, until he admitted that yes, this was, in part, due to jealousy, but quickly went on to explain why he had broken up with Cas in the first place. That changed her mind right quick.

“Adam’s a hunter?” Charlie murmured.

“One of the best in the country; how’s he been around Cas?”

Charlie shot him a _you don’t want to go there_ look and, well, yeah, she was right, he _didn’t_ want to go there, but any small clue that could give them notice that Adam was about to strike would be _perfect_.

“I need to save him, Charlie,” Dean begged her. “Even if he hates my guts, I need to save his life."

She sighed. “Adam has been very sweet around Cas. He dotes upon him. Uhm…”

“What?” Dean asked anxiously.

Charlie looked at her hands as she spoke the next part:

“He’s made love to Cas. I accidentally walked in on them once.”

Dean felt the punch go straight to his heart and was sure it had stopped for good, right then and there. Then the pain set in. Oh, he needed to sit.

“Oh. Okay.” He tried to regulate his breathing that now struggled to reach his lungs and exit his body, as if it was frozen. It took him a long time.

Okay. So. So, Cas had made love with someone else. Okay. That’s fine. So had he. Cas had not been his first, and obviously hadn’t been his last. And. Good for him, taking that step with…with someone…else…

 _Oh cut the bullshit, Winchester_ , he thought, _you’re fucking furious at Adam. He stole your true love._

_But of course he did. You’re the idiot that let that love go in the first place._

_TO SAVE HIS LIFE._

_AND LOOK WHERE THAT GOT HIM. He just fucked another person, and you_ know _he takes that shit_ very _seriously…which means when he finds out that person wants to kill him he’s going to be tres ruined. Nice job, asshole. You sure know how to tear apart the person you claim you love oh so very much._

“I’m fucking trying,” Dean cried out, holding his head in his hands. Oh, the voices kept on arguing. He groaned. “How can I save him when he won’t even listen to me?”

 “He will to me,” Charlie said with great determination.

Dean looked up at her with eyes that swam with fear, uncertainty, and the deepest love a guy could feel. In Charlie’s eyes, he saw the confidence he lacked. His faith went to her. She might just pull this off after all.

“I sure as hell hope so,” Dean told her, desperation beginning to seep in. 


	6. Chapter 6

Dean wanted to stay, to help Charlie convince Cas, until Charlie reminded him that if he was involved, it wouldn’t matter who else was with him, Cas would flat out refuse to believe anything said. So, Dean got himself to leave…after a long struggle.

 

Left alone, Charlie took a deep breath and headed inside. Cas was sitting on the couch, TV on yet all his attention had gone to his phone. He was smiling at it; chatting with Adam, no doubt.

 _Great_ , Charlie thought. It’d be that much harder for her now to convince him. Still, she had to try. So, she pasted on a smile as she continued towards him. If he knew of her arrival, he gave no sign.

“Hey, Cas,” she greeted in a tone that, to her own ears, sounded far too…cheerful…while she joined him on the couch.

“Hey, Charlie,” he replied absent-mindedly. A second later he let out a laugh; seeing the brief happiness on his face, Charlie stalled. He hadn’t been this happy since…well…since Dean.

What if Dean was wrong??

Realizing her stupidity in trusting him before actually doing some research herself, she left the room to go to her bedroom where her laptop awaited her.

It took not even five minutes to realize Dean had _definitely_ not been mistaken. Adam Whittaker was _bad_.

Fueled by fear, by concern, by worry, she wasted no more time getting back to Cas. This time his phone sat on the table, his attention on the TV. She focused on him, not caring what was on the TV (realizing anyway that it was F.R.I.E.N.D.S. when she heard the whiny voice of Ross).

“Cas, there’s something we need to discuss.” Oh, how her heart was going a mile a minute.

His attention slid straight to her, bright and alert. If he felt anxious about what this discussion would entail, it did not show in those blue eyes.

“Yes?” he prompted after a minute when she didn’t continue.

 _Oh god,_ she thought. Could she do this? Could she break his heart like this?

Never mind that, she _had_ to, if she was to save his very life. He could get over another broken heart but he, to state the obvious, wouldn’t get over being dead.

“It’s about Adam,” she finally said.

His expression fell.

“Oh.” His gaze flicked to his phone on the table for a second. “What about him?” Reluctantly, he looked back at her; now she saw the anxiety.

“He’s bad, Cas.”

His anger was quick.

“Let me guess. You ran into Dean outside, right?”

“Well, ye—”

“And he told you _all_ about his cockamamie theory, yeah?”

“Thing is, Cas—”

“God!” He burst out, causing her to flinch back with surprise, “Dean I get, but you of all people, Charlie?! You I thought would be happy for me! YOU I thought would see how happy Adam has made me and support that! I thought you’d fucking care that for the first time in fucking months I’m not actually miserable anymore!”

“And I really would be if—”

“NO! NO IFS! Adam is not a bad guy! He treats me very well!!”

Charlie gave him a hard stare.

“You need to listen to me _now_ , Castiel,” she ordered in a voice that could freeze water, “Adam Whittaker is not your normal teenager. He is a hunter. All you need to do is look it up online and you’ll see he is not here for your fucking benefit! He is here to kill you!”

“STOP IT! You don’t fucking know him!”

“And you do?! Having sex with someone doesn’t mean you know them, Cas! I mean look at what happened with Dean!”

His little shocked gasp and the pain that flared in his gaze had Charlie sorely regretting what she’d just said.

He then glared at her, tears unshed in his eyes. She knew she'd just ruined her chance to convince him when she’d hit that sore spot, and it was too late to undo the damage now.

“Fuck you, Charlie.” He got up and left the room. A few seconds later the front door slammed shut, making her wince.

She leaned back against the couch and swore. Cas was fucking doomed.

 

Cas was not only furious by Charlie’s betrayal, but also hurt. Dean he’d understood (jealousy), but Charlie? How could she have possibly spoken of Adam like that?! Looking him up online? How stupid was that! That didn’t mean jack _shit!_ What he’d done in another place didn’t mean he was going to do that _here_. People did change, after all.

So he decided she just didn’t know him well enough, and that he’d just have to change that. He got out his cell phone and called him; he answered on the second ring.

“Hey, Cas, what’s up?”

All at once, Cas lost his will to force Charlie to like Adam and had to scramble to come up with an excuse for calling him out of the blue knowing he was at work.

“Oh, just bored. How’s work?”

They ended up chatting for half an hour before Adam had to go.

Charlie’s words continued to haunt him, though; she’d been successful in planting a tiny seed of doubt and this annoyed him to no end.

 

Meanwhile, Charlie was talking to Dean.

“He really didn’t believe you?! What the hell happened?!” Dean’s deep voice filtered through the speakerphone. Charlie was washing the dishes to try to calm her agitated nerves.

Before she could answer, Cas did for her.

“What happened was I’m not a fucking idiot like the both of you.” His tone was dark, full of anger and resentment.

Charlie whirled, wet hands dripping onto the kitchen floor going unnoticed by the both of them.

“Cas, I can explain,” Charlie started. His glare at her, more ferocious than she’d ever seen on him before, froze her from saying more.

“The only thing I want to hear out of your mouth, Charlie, is a fucking apology. If you can’t manage that, then don’t fucking talk to me. As for you, Dean, I am beyond words astounded how you continue to fucking hurt me.”

Charlie flinched at that. That would burrow deep into Dean. Cas was too blind to see that Dean was still madly in love with him.

“Cas—”

Oh, the pain in his tone; Charlie flinched again, this time inwardly so.

“ _I’m not done!”_ Cas yelled. Charlie took a couple steps away from him. She’d never seen Castiel so furious in her life.

Silence greeted his outburst, so he continued; Charlie was glad his tone had softened a little.

“It’s one thing to rip my fucking heart out but how _dare you_ actually try to go after the next guy I end up with after you, acting as if you have a shot in hell of ever getting me back? Dean, you made your god damned decision! Man the fuck up, deal with it, and MOVE ON like you fucking forced me to!

“Yeah, I’d thrown myself into a major pity fest, drowned myself in depression, cried myself to sleep night after night because I couldn’t fucking understand what I’d done that had been so bad that caused you to leave me! But you know what? That’s over now. Because now I see it was never me. It was you, asshole! It was always you. You and your god damned popularity! You and your stupid ego! What-the-fuck-ever that caused you to tear me apart. Who gives a shit anymore?! You are done. We are done. You no longer control my life, I won’t fucking let it. So leave me the fuck alone!”

At this point, he looked at Charlie.

“And _you_. I don’t even fucking know you anymore. I _thought_ you were on my side, but since you’re not, you might as well just leave. Go back to heaven. I don’t fucking need you.” He turned on his heel and strode out of the room while all the air in Charlie’s lungs was sucked out like a vacuum. Tears were not far behind; Dean was forgotten as she broke down, literally falling the floor as her legs lost all function. He’d hung up at some point, but who knew how much of it he’d heard? Nor did she care.

She’d just lost everything that ever meant anything to her.


	7. Chapter 7

The following afternoon, Wednesday, October 12th, Cas had been spending with Adam at his own house in an attempt to, in a sort of subtle manner, get Charlie to see that both she and Dean were dead wrong about Adam. Having a Wii, they played some games; nobody had blown up at anyone so…that was a success.

Adam took him by complete surprise after dinner, however, when just as they were setting up to watch a movie, he popped the question.

“Will you go to homecoming with me?”

Cas, in his peripheral, saw Charlie freeze and stare at them with wide eyes. He elected not to react to that, instead choosing to focus upon Adam, feeling thrilled.

“You want to go to homecoming with me?” he asked the human.

Adam, smiling, nodded. “It’s our last chance to go to one and I would love to go with someone I care so much about.”

Cas, beyond words, merely grabbed Adam in a hug, followed by a kiss.

“I’m so glad you want to go!” Adam told him, seeming genuinely excited. “I’ll get the tickets tomorrow, first thing.” He gave Cas another kiss and excused himself to go to the kitchen after asking if Cas wanted anything (he did not).

As Cas spun around in his excitement (you know, like they do in the movies), he failed to see Charlie sneaking away after Adam; it was good he’d missed that.

Charlie kept herself well-hidden as she spied on her brother’s boyfriend while he was in the kitchen. He did indeed get the drink he said he’d be getting, but the moment he should’ve spent making his way back to the living room, he spent instead setting his drink down on the kitchen counter, getting out his cellphone, and calling someone. Charlie reminded herself that it could just be to…uh…well, fuck, she didn’t know…maybe let those he lived with (if he didn’t live alone) that he’d be coming home late?? To her despair, she soon found out once and for all just how right she and Dean had been. Fear had her stomach tying in an uncomfortable knot.

“Hey, yeah, it’s me. Listen. We’re close. Real close.” A pause. “I know that’s what I’ve said before but I fucking—hey! I mean it! This fri—thi—STOP INTERRUPTING ME! I’m trying to fucking tell you! This Friday! Jesus.” Another pause. “Yes, definitely an angel. I…what? Why the hell would you ask me _that?!”_ He heaved a sigh. “Yes, he’s a good fuck. He’s a very good fuck. Dean taught him some things; God, you’re such a perv. _Hey_!” Anger was in his tone now. “If you want to come on down here and fuck him, be my fucking guest!…Yeah, that’s what I thought, asshole. Listen to me! Bring the angel blades like we planned and two of your best men. Yes, I know he’s clueless but I have a feeling his sister and his ex are onto me. They keep giving me looks and if I’m to kill this fucking monster, I need the other two men to stop them from stopping me, get it? Good. Friday evening. Seven PM. Wait. No. Better make it,” he stopped suddenly, and Charlie realized too late that she had let out a gasp; she froze “…think she’s here. Fuck.” Charlie took off like a shot (just in time; as she disappeared around the corner, Adam had peeked out from the kitchen, seeing nothing out of the ordinary).

Her return to the living room was seen by Cas, whom had looked at her for but a moment and hadn’t said a word as she retook her previous place on the couch. Adam came in a few seconds later, eyeing Charlie with suspicion as he joined his lover. She forced a smile at him and started the movie.

At least she had most of the details of the attack, so…she and Dean had _some_ chance to stop this.

Hopefully.

“That’s all you heard??” Dean demanded on the phone later that night. Cas had left with Adam to go spend the night at Adam’s place because, as Adam had put it, he didn’t feel safe here. On their way out, Cas had given Charlie a look that told her he was none surprised by this, a look that tore into her heart. That wasn’t important now, though.

“Dean, he caught me there.”

“ _He caught you?!_ What damned good is the information, then? Obviously he’s changed it!”

She sighed, cursing how she’d phrased it.

“He didn’t actually catch me. He _thought_ he heard me, but when he looked out to where I had been, I was gone. Best case scenario, he figures he was just hearing things out of paranoia and goes through with his original plan.”

“And if the plan’s changed, if he decides not to strike that night? How the fuck are you going to find out when he _will_ strike? He knows something is not right there and is going to stay far away from you as he can get! Great fucking job, Charlie!”

“Hey! Listen, you fuck, I get that you love my brother to hell and back, I get that you’re fucking shitfaced terrified of losing him forever, but this whole fucking situation is your fault! _You_ triggered this by breaking up with him in the first place so how about you get the fuck off your god damned high horse and _fucking help me!_ ”

Silence greeted her for a few minutes and just when she’d thought he’d hung up…

“You’re right. Charlie, I _am_ terrified. I’m just a human. How the hell could I possibly save him? He hates me.”

She sighed.

“It doesn’t matter that he hates you; that’s irrelevant. The main thing is they’ll be prepared for you and me, but they won’t expect Sam. You’ve kept Sam updated on this, right?”

“Of course.”

“So while I’m fighting off one, Sam will take over fighting the other that will attack you and you can go save your beloved from getting killed. He won’t be happy about you being his hero, but at least he’ll be alive.”

“And how do you propose I take down a guy trained to kill supernatural beings?”

“Get angry, Dean Winchester,” Charlie said in a tone that chilled him to his core. “You fucking get furious and you do whatever it god damned takes to save my brother’s life.”

She had the utmost faith that Dean would do just that.

 

_Friday, October 14 th_

_Homecoming_

_7pm_

Cas was having trouble keeping calm. He and Adam had made it safely to homecoming. He’d seen Dean on the way in, standing alone staring at him with a gaze so direct that made him feel real uneasy.  He elected to ignore it, choosing instead to focus upon the sweet guy by his side holding his hand and watching him for his reaction, laughing often as Cas reacted to something with excitement.

Charlie joined Dean in the lobby as they followed the pair into the gym, both thinking that nobody would know, just by looking at the pair, that Adam was a killer that had just planned Cas’ death like it was some small chore. They were both thinking of just how _good_ this guy was, to completely fool Cas (who was usually paranoid by nature) into thinking he was completely safe.

They both hated Adam with everything they had.

Dean wanted to stop him, _now_. Every second spent waiting for the attack to occur was a second wasted in preventing it from even starting; Charlie, sensing this, put a hand on his arm and warned him that if Adam had moved the attack just in case, then Dean would make things worse between him and Cas. Waiting was his only real option if he wanted to eventually get his ex back. He fucking _hated_ it. If only he had a damn time machine…he’d tell his parents _fuck you_ instead of doing all this to the one he loved the most in this world. Cas had never once done anything to deserve any of this, after all.  Alas, he could only wait, and hope. He didn’t have to wait much longer, at least.

_8pm:_

Sam had joined Dean inside the gym; while they chatted at one entrance, Charlie was in sight at the other. Dean had just been starting to believe the attack would never occur when two people who _clearly_ didn’t belong here showed up. They were far too old, is what he meant; how they’d been let in was a mystery but not one that was his concern right now. It was show time!

Every muscle was coiled for a fight, every cell fueled by fury. Sam disappeared into some shadows nearby. Dean watched as the pair split off, turning his attention onto Cas right at that precise moment, pretending he wasn’t fully aware of the 6 foot guy headed right his way cracking his knuckles and trying this best to appear intimidating. Dean repressed the urge to roll his eyes; apparently the men Adam knew were major drama queens.

There were no teachers around he noted all of a sudden, which he was sure Adam had _something_ to do with somehow. Or was it just some freaky coincidence? Who knew? A glance towards Charlie showed that she had already lost her fight with her guy, staring at him with fear in her eyes. Then he glanced at Cas and his heart leapt right up into his throat, stealing his breath away.

Cas had felt so content, so safe dancing in Adam’s arms, eyes closed as they swayed. It all came crashing down when Adam put his lips to his ear and whispered:

“Time to die, angel.”

Eyes flying open and meeting Adam’s, he found himself staring at a total stranger. The eyes were what did it…they were eyes of a killer rather than of a lover. How could Adam be looking at him like that? Why? What had he done?

“What?”

Part of him prayed like hell he was just having a panic-induced hallucination.

“You and me, we’re going to go out to the parking lot to finish this. No need to expose your death to these kids. So, here’s the plan. You’re going to pretend like we’re just sneaking away or so help me I will stab you here and now. Not a killing blow, of course, but by the time I’m finished with you afterwards, for making this far more difficult than it has to be, you’ll wish it’d been one. Go. Now.”

Cas obeyed, heart shattering apart once more. He’d never felt more alone. Was there truly nobody he could trust? It seemed no matter what human he tried to confide in, they only ended up abandoning him in the long run. What was the point if nobody cared enough to stay with him? If he survived this, it might well do him good to just go back to Heaven. He no longer had anything left on Earth.

_*Meanwhile*_ A hand landed on Dean’s shoulder but just as he was about to whirl and attack, his brother stepped in, grabbing the guy from behind in a choke hold. Dean made his escape and ran, heart pounding, after Cas being led away by Adam.

Once outside, in a parking lot well-lit with bright florescent lighting, Cas was shoved hard enough to fall to the ground. He scrambled back to his feet and whirled to face his traitor. He felt ready to cry (mostly due to fear) but he held that at bay; crying would do nothing for him. If he was going to survive this, he needed to be able to fight, which required having absolutely no distractions. Besides, he was an Angel of the Lord, a soldier, and soldiers didn’t fucking cry! Soldiers were _tough_. He was tough. Or, well, he’d have to learn to be so.

“Adam, come on, what are you doing?” His voice came out stronger than he’d originally attempted it to, which was good, but, unfortunately, it still held a slight whine in it.

“Killing you eventually, obviously,” Adam replied in a voice that was devoid of all emotion. He was calm, collected; this was just another day for him.

The voice and attitude of a hunter, Cas recognized. It was clear that it’d do no good to try to deny what he was.

“How’d you find out?”

“Doesn’t matter, you human-fucking monster; you’re going to die.” Adam shook an angel blade from his sleeve into his hand. Just as he was about to lunge, Dean’s voice rang out; Cas’ heart lurched at the sound.

“GET THE HELL AWAY FROM MY—FROM CAS, YOU SHITCUNT!”

Adam froze, and then whirled, eyes wide with his shock.

“How in the _hell_ did you get past Jack?!”

Cas watched as the pair stood face-to-face, glaring at each other as they conversed.

“You forgot to account for my brother, you fucking short-sighted moron,” Dean replied, just a hair of smugness in his tone.

Adam closed his eyes and let out a curse. Dean used that split second to cast a glance at Cas to make sure the angel was alright. Of course Cas was fine, he was just too stunned to really be feeling the weight of this betrayal, and the fight/flight hormone surge; in a word, he was frozen. Plus, Dean’s timing had been impeccable.

Eyes open once more, Adam’s gaze blazed with determination.

“If you think _you_ can stop me, you’re mistaken, Dean,” he declared. He seemed to become aware once more of the blade in his hand. He lifted it slightly, drawing Dean’s attention right to it. “I mean, this thing can kill a supernatural being as strong as an angel. To it, you’re nothing but butter.”

Cas felt his heart scream in terror at the very _mention_ of Dean’s death. He took an inadvertent step forward which caused Adam to swing towards him, blade leading the way.

“NO!” Dean hollered though there’d been no need; Cas’ reflexes had had him jumping back just in time for the blade to swipe through nothing but air. Adam’s face took on a snarling expression; it was ugly.

“You _will_ die!” He looked back at Dean. “I don’t care who I have to kill first to do it,” he looked back at Cas, “I refuse to let a monster like you live!”

“Cas is not the monster here,” Dean said in a tone heavy with hatred. Slowly he began to angle himself as best he could between angel and killer.

_Get angry, Dean Winchester_ , Charlie had said, _get furious._ Well, he sure as all hell was as furious as he could get with his human limits, and one motherfucking way or another, he was saving Cas’ god damned life.

Even if that meant taking someone else’s, or sacrificing his own.


	8. Chapter 8

Cas saw what Dean was trying to do, angling himself between him and Adam. His pride was very much against it. Sure, he was a young angel, only a teenager same as Dean and Adam, but _they_ weren’t expected to be soldiers. He needed to learn to fight his own battles, not hide behind his ex-boyfriend who was the damn cause for this situation in the first place; when he tried to move from behind Dean, however, Dean merely moved in front of him again. Knowing there was no way around this that he could see for the time being, Cas stood in silence, helpless, frustrated, and annoyed by it all.

Dean was screaming in his mind at Cas to stop trying to move out from behind him, for fuck's sake, and was grateful when he finally stopped. Now he could focus upon Adam, which was a good thing because Adam had just used up the last of his patience.

“Alright fine,” he said, his attention all on Dean, “have it your own way.” He lunged.

Dean, pulling Cas with him (ignoring his cry of indignation), jumped out of the way just a tad too slow. While the blade did not pierce anybody, it did nick his arm, far sharper than it looked. Dean of course paid no attention to the blood now running down his arm, too busy trying to figure out how the hell to stop a trained killer that had the world's deadliest weapon in his hand. Okay...so, maybe not the  _deadliest_ , but...well, you get it.

 

Cas, deciding it was better to try to fight even if—he sent a glare Dean’s way—his ex thought he was helpless, used this brief impasse to swiftly move out into the open again, too fast for Dean, at first, to comprehend what had even happened. Adam, however, had been watching him closely; Cas had banked upon this, of course. Part of him was also trying to save Dean, ever the idiot, from getting killed.

Dean caught up real quick, though.

“Hey, what the hell?!”

Cas ignored this, for Adam was now _smiling_. Because he thought he’d just won this. Which meant he was about to make his move.

“That was a stupid move, angel,” he taunted.

“Damn it, Cas!” Dean snarled, trying to get back between the two. This time Cas stopped him, an arm held out in front of him.

“I don’t need your fucking protection, Dean! Back off!”

Dean pushed past the arm and faced him, seeming to forget about the bigger threat at the moment, who was just  _waiting_ for the perfect opportunity.

“What the hell is your problem?!" Dean demanded to Cas. "Having help is a _good_ thing!”

All at once, Cas lost the last of his patience with this guy. They stood face to face now, hands balled into fists by their sides.

“Yeah, when asked for!" He shot back. "I never fucking asked you to help!”

“You can’t _honestly_ expect me to—”

Cas whirled, having seen Adam see his chance and take it, knocked the blade out of Adam’s hand, and caught Adam by the throat, cutting off the guy’s air supply. It was over in milliseconds. Adam grasped at the hand that held him, eyes wide with terror at having lost so fast.

“Time to go,” Cas growled at him, eyes lighting up first blue then white. Following this, a bright white light, far too bright for a human to withstand looking at directly (as Dean soon found out), surrounded them for a few seconds. When it was gone, Cas was the only one left standing, completely unscathed.

Dean stood, gaping at him, angel blade held loose in his hand. Cas took a minute to sort of marvel that he’d actually done it, he’d sent a soul on his own to face judgement. Cool! 

Kinda anticlimactic, actually...

Then he remembered Dean, and all his annoyance with the guy came to a boiling point.

“What the _hell_ did you think you were doing?” he demanded then, taking the human by surprise.

Dean continued to just stare at him, gaping at first and then ever so slowly transitioning to being just as angry as the angel. His grasp on the angel blade tightened and he gestured to it with his free hand.

“This, you fucking idiot. I was trying to prevent you from this fucking thing from killing you. _Excuse me_ for caring!”

“You don’t have a god damn right to care about me, Dean!”

Dean dropped the blade, marveling for just a second at the melodic clang—a sound that was…well…supernatural—before making his way over to where Cas stood.

“We spent, what was it, two years together?”

“What does that matter?! _You broke up with me!_ You yourself told me to move on! YOU HAVE SOMEONE ELSE!”

Those tears that had threatened earlier were back, and stronger. Cas’ lower lip trembled; he watched with horror as Dean’s gaze went straight to it.

Dean’s gaze travelled up to meet Cas’, and his next words were spoken in a calm tone.

“I may have left, but I spent two years loving you with everything I had, Cas. I didn’t just fall in love with you. I fucking plummeted. I _willingly_ plummeted. I was beyond-words happy to be yours. That kind of love, it leaves a mark that doesn’t ever go away.”

Cas blinked, dislodging some tears down his cheeks as all the pain he’d struggled with before he'd met Adam once more washed over him. He was furious that it'd taken so little to bring it all crashing in again. He was furious it was back at all. Would he never feel okay again? Was this his destiny? To drown in wave after wave of pure fucking agony?? Was this his own personal hell?!

“You claim you loved me more than anything on the earth. You claim I meant everything to you." His voice began to pick up some volume, some force. "However, the fact remains, Dean, I couldn’t possibly have actually meant that much because you _did_ leave me! You _did_ break up with me! _You moved on!!”_

Dean held his gaze, unshed tears in his own. Cas waited for him to speak and was taken off guard by what the human did instead.

Dean moved in a step closer to him, gaze remaining locked with his, took the angel’s face in his hands, and laid, on his lips, one of the most bittersweet kisses Cas had ever felt. More tears were dislodged down his cheeks as he closed his eyes, everything else frozen but his lips as the kiss blossomed right into one of the those that they had once shared several times a day. He allowed this despite knowing damned well this was the last thing he should've been doing, so unable to stop. His arms unfroze to wrap around Dean, to bring them closer, to draw this out because this was likely the last kiss he was ever going to get from the one he wanted most on this God forsaken planet. Especially since he wasn't planning on staying around much longer. Not when it hurt like this with no end in sight.

The passionate embrace was broken when a sob out of nowhere built up in Cas’ throat and he pulled away before it could be let out. Confused all to hell on top of the pain he felt, he could only manage to stare at Dean who was staring right back at him, waiting for him to say something. They would’ve stayed like this for hours, no doubt, if Sam hadn’t burst through the entrance a mere few minutes later, seen them, and ran over bellowing if they were alright.

Taking this as a cue, Cas broke the eye contact with the one guy on the planet who could torment him like this, turned, and took flight. He was out of sight just as some curious teens came out to investigate why Sam had yelled. Cas had taken this risk because he _needed_ to be anywhere but there.

So he went to Hawaii…’cos why not?

 

Meanwhile, Dean was trying to wrap his head around what had just happened, what it all meant. Yeah, he’d meant to kiss Cas, and yeah he’d hoped Cas would see that he, Dean Winchester, was just as madly in love with him—if not more so—as he’d been when they’d been together, but instead Cas had just…flown away...without a word. Just like that. God only knew where he’d gone.

 _He kissed me back, though,_ Dean told himself, _he pulled me in, he held me close. ...He actually kissed me back..._

That had to mean _something_ …right?

To make matters more confusing, Sam was insisting, in his right ear, that he tell him if he was alright (having seen the blood ‘n all) while, in his left, Charlie was demanding to know where Cas had gone, if Cas was alright, and where was Adam, and straight ahead, heading right for him was his girlfriend, who must never know what had happened here (especially that-Dean held back the urge to sigh dreamily-that amazing, wonderful, passionate kiss).

Alas, he had to come back to reality.

“ALRIGHT ALREADY!” Dean screamed, startling not only those around him but also himself. He’d never known his voice to get so loud. It’d done its job, though, getting Charlie and Sam to flinch away from him and his girlfriend to stop in her tracks just out of earshot, eyes wide in fright, for never once had he ever raised his voice around her.

Or around anyone.

Well…that wasn't true. There was one. One who had elicited so much passion he’d found himself losing control…but that was a different thing altogether...not at all related to this particular circumstance.

Anyway, he had shit to deal with.

To Sam he said: “I’m fine, Sam. The blade just nicked me. That’s as much damage as Adam doled out.”

To Charlie he said: “Your beloved brother is alive. He flew off to God-Knows-Where after I…” Realizing he didn’t want to spill the beans that he’d kissed his ex, Dean changed his next words: “After he did something to Adam. His eyes glowed white and then a white light, that I couldn’t even look at directly, surrounded them for a few seconds. When it was gone, so was Adam. Cas was unscathed, and then he just flew off.”

Charlie narrowed her eyes at him. “What’d you do to him?”

Dean elected not to answer, instead easing past her and his brother, and approaching his girlfriend.

“What the hell is going on, Dean?!” Anna demanded while she hugged him. Dean hugged her back, all too painfully aware that these arms were not the ones he was so desperate to be in. It was time to face that fact that there was only one person, one _being_ , to whom his heart, in its entirety, belonged. It was time to face that fact that there was no such thing as moving on from that. It was time to accept that this love he felt was never going to fade, no matter how much time and space he took away from the being causing such a feeling.

It was time to tell Cas the truth.

It was time to get him back.

All at once, he remembered Adam’s goons. When he turned to ask Charlie and Sam, only Sam remained; he’d have to do.

He left Anna where she was after telling her he needed to speak to Sam alone for a second, went over to his brother, and asked his brother where they went.

“Where who went?” Sam asked.

Dean felt annoyed but elected to not show it.

“Adam’s goons," he explained with as much patience as he could muster.

Sam’s expression of sudden understanding was followed by:

“Teachers had seen them capture us and called the cops.”

Dean looked around the parking lot, then at Sam with confusion. The place was as empty now as it'd been when he'd burst out here after Cas and Adam.

“Do you see cops anywhere, Sam? Cos I don’t. Nor had any appeared during the fight…if you want to call it that.” What else could he call it, though?

“Yeah, that'd be because the cops brushed this off as unimportant and—”

Dean reacted before Sam could even finish.

“Wait. Wait a damn minute. You’re telling me the god damned _cops_ thought it wasn’t important that two kids had gotten taken hostage by two adults?!”

Sam shrugged, looking at Dean with wary concern.

“ _What the hell is this world coming to?!_ ” Dean shouted, capturing the entire attention of the ever-growing crowd that was spilling out of the high school.

“Uhm, anyway the chaperones banded together to fight them and they just...ran. It was...Dean, wh…what’s wrong?” 

Dean’s breath heaved out of him, all at once he was feeling…what was he feeling? It was intense, whatever it was, drowning him fast. For some reason…he found himself saying the truth:

“I kissed him, Sam. I kissed Cas.”

Sam’s eyes went wide and instead of answering, he looked to his right at Anna who was still waiting where she’d been told to do so, then he looked back at Dean.

“I _know_ ,” Dean snapped, the feeling worsening in his gut. “I fucking know, Sam, alright. Jesus.” He sat down on the hard pavement, drew his knees to his chest and rested his forehead against them. “It just happened, alright? I wasn’t planning on it. We were standing there after he’d…done whatever to Adam…and he was pissed that I had been trying to protect him, and as he was raving at me I just…I realized…that I,” Dean tried for a deep breath which eluded him, “I still love him. Sam, do you get it? _I'm still in love with him!_ And then the next damn thing I knew, I just _had_ to kiss him, which of course only made things worse even though he kissed me back and…God…now he’s gone, and he’ll probably never come back, and...and...”

And just like that, Dean Winchester broke.


	9. Chapter 9

As he held a sobbing Dean in his arms, Sam ignored the snickering group of teenagers that were already starting to herd back into the school. He knew Dean’s breakdown was a bad blow to his reputation, but in the grand scheme of things, such a thing mattered very little. What mattered most right this second was getting the guy home and in bed, and then taking it from there. When Cas came back on Monday, _if_ Cas came back on Monday, they’d deal with that then, too.

 

Cas, sitting on a beach in Hawaii where it was three in the afternoon on that same Friday (I _know_ , time zones are so kooky, right?), had not started crying as he’d expected. On the way there, the breakdown had receded, probably to strike at a time far more inconvenient for him. Whatever, he was glad he wasn’t wasting energy crying over an asshole like Dean. Dean kissing him like that, though?? What the hell had _that_ been?!

Cas hated that he wanted to go back and do it some more, without it ever ending.

Instead, of course, here was he was, sitting alone, watching the waves crash the shore, the ocean totally oblivious of the turmoil of the humans and other creatures near it. It was calming him down; it just wasn’t curing his melancholy as he’d hoped it would.

Charlie showed up about five minutes later, surprising the angel none. He’d known she’d go to find him the millisecond she realized he was missing. He _was_ surprised, a little, that she’d found him so fast. As she sat beside him, he moved not one single muscle to greet her.

“Nice day out,” Charlie commented.

Cas nodded once. He'd rarely ever seen Hawaii have bad weather, but then again, he didn't visit all that often.

“What happened?” Charlie asked him then.

He elected not to answer; hoping against logic that if he didn’t talk about it anymore, if he just tried to…ignore that he had made a big mistake…it might just disappear. He knew better, of course, but still…had to try, right?

“Cas, you know damned well I’ll sit here hour after hour until you tell me what the hell happened.”

There was an idea; just sit here, let time slip by. Hours would turn to days, to weeks, to years. Enough years and Dean would move on. Problem solved!

 _Except then you’d have to live watching someone you love be happy with someone else,_ he thought, _and if you think the pain now is bad...you don’t fuckin’ wanna know how much worse it can get._

He let out a sigh.

“Dean tried to protect me against Adam, I got pissed off, and we had an argument after the fight which somehow transitioned into him kissing me.”

Charlie didn’t seem the least bit shocked.

“I knew it,” she confirmed. “I fuckin’ knew that jerk pulled a stunt like that.”

Cas cast her a bemused glance at her anger.

“You do know I didn’t stop it, right? I had all the power to stop it, and instead I kissed him back. If anything, _I’m_ the jerk. I led him to believe there could be something where there can never be anything ever again.”

Charlie studied him for a moment, probably choosing her next words wisely. Cas looked back at the ocean as she did this. Her next words got him good.

“Why can’t there be something there?”

“Because,” he started, and then stopped. She knew his reason why, there was no point in saying it aloud.

“He hurt you once before, yeah?”

He sat in silence, knowing the question was a rhetorical one, knowing she'd get to her point.

“Cas, _he_ kissed _you_. Do you realize how big a deal that is? You didn’t initiate it, _he_ did, which means he still cares about you!”

He cast her a sideways glance. Sure, maybe he still cared, but that didn’t change the fact that he’d left in the first place. He’d broken his heart. He’d gotten a girlfriend.

Oh, shit, his girlfriend.

The glimmer of hope he’d denied having went out like a flame in the wind. Dean was taken and that was the end. Game over.

“Did you hear me?” Charlie asked, and Cas realized he’d not said any of this aloud.

“He has a girlfriend.”

“So?”

“So?” He repeated back at her, tone incredulous. “ _So_ , Charlie, he’s taken. There _is_ no getting him back.”

Charlie rolled her eyes and did a face palm.

“You really are dense sometimes, angel.”

Cas wanted to contest this, decided to just let it go. He was tired. He just wanted this whole shitty experience behind him. It was too much.

“Listen, he's dating her, he ain't married to her. You need to tell him how you feel, that you feel the same way, and don’t you fucking dare deny that you do. You’re groping around for any reason at all to keep him at a distance when what you should be doing is trying to get him back. It won’t take much effort; the guy is clearly still in love with you.”

“The guy broke my heart once before, Charlie. You can’t seriously expect me to just put my heart in those hands again.” No matter how tempting that might seem…some things deserved to stay in the past. Some things needed to remain a cautionary tale.

Some things were best forgotten.

And some things, he soon found out, were impossible to get rid of.

 

_Monday, October 17 th_

Cas felt a sense of déjà vu staring at those doors again with the same dread he’d felt last month. Just like last month, Charlie was beside him urging him to go inside, that it was _now or never_ , etc., etc. It was like Adam had never existed, as if the brief happiness Cas had felt with him had never occurred.

Unlike last time, however, she didn’t wait for him to go in; instead she heaved a sigh, called him overdramatic, took his hand, and pulled him into the building. He tripped on the metal trim thing (he had never found out what that was called) that was at the base of the doorway and stumbled his way right into Dean Winchester’s arms, gasping aloud as his brain ever-so-slowly realized that his fall was no longer happening. Their eyes met. Their gazes held. Both stared at each other with shock, neither comprehending what had exactly just happened, only that it’d been instinctual, only that, somehow, within seconds of this school day beginning, they were already in each other’s arms once more, and they really weren't all that upset about it as they should've been.

Cas’ heart was going so fast now he thought it’d give out in a few seconds, but then those few seconds passed and he was still very much alive; so then he was all _too_ aware of just how…comfortable…he was right now, in Dean’s arms, being so close he could feel the guy’s breath whispering over his face. His breath smelled of mint, and without thinking, Cas found himself leaning in, lips just burning to feel the kiss that always made everything feel so right again.

His brain caught on to just what he was doing, though,  _right_ before their lips made contact, and he shoved away before things could get any worse. He wanted to say something like _how dare you?!,_ or _what are you doing?!,_ but nothing came out. 

Dean blinked as if awakening from some hypnosis, looked around at the kids watching them, looked back at Cas with confusion and just a smidgen of horror, turned without a single word, and briskly walked away.

Cas felt his heart wail in despair. So close! They’d been…

 _Too close_ , he reminded himself.

They must never, _never_ get close again. Never. It was the only way, logically, to never be hurt again.

…So why did that seem like the worst possible idea in the history of ideas? Why was he fighting it? It’d been so easy before, why was it difficult now?

The only thing Cas knew for sure was that watching Dean walk away like that tore into his very soul.

 _…You know what? Fuck it_ , Cas thought. _Just fuck it._ He went after Dean Winchester. It took a moment to catch up to the point where Dean was within earshot. Fuck their breakup, fuck his girlfriend, fuck social rules; he wanted Dean, and he was going to do something about that, God damn it!

“DEAN WINCHESTER!” Cas boomed, voice partially echoing in the slight acoustics of the math hallway. They were alone here, though after that bellow, they wouldn’t be for long.

Dean froze and turned, expression showing first fright, then confusion, and finally settling upon wariness.

“What, Cas? I thought you were mad at me for saving your ass Friday night. You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Just shut the fuck up and kiss me,” Cas growled.

Dean didn’t hesitate one second after Cas' lips met his, throwing himself into the kiss with so much passion Cas’ legs threatened to buckle from beneath him. They miraculously held, however, as the two finally let go of all inhibitions that’d held them back all this time.

It wasn't until near the end that the tears started down Cas’ cheeks as their kissing slowed and gradually came to a stop. As they parted and opened their eyes, Dean let out a half-hysterical laugh as his hands went right to Cas’ cheeks (pure instinct) to wipe the moisture away.

“Angel,” he murmured. 

 _Just like old times,_ Cas thought, feeling his heart swell at the familiar  _I love you so much_ tone of Dean's voice.

That only made things worse, however, tears turning to sobs; Dean pulled him into his arms exactly as Cas had wanted him to do for so long. Though, Cas realized, it’d really only been a few months that they’d broken up but... _man..._ if it hadn’t felt like years.

Of course, none of this meant they were back together. They couldn’t be, not with Anna in the picture, and it really wasn’t fair to hurt her just because he’d been Dean’s significant other before her. He was not more worthy than her and should never force Dean to break her heart to pieces just because he [Cas] couldn’t seem to live without this one human. After all, Cas knew what it’d felt like to have his heart broken by Dean. Never did he wish that upon anyone else.

…Still…he _really_ wanted to be selfish. He wanted to be selfish as _hell._

“We still need to talk this out,” Cas mumbled.

“I know,” Dean replied gently, “and we will. Just enjoy the moment now for what it is, Cas.”

Cas decided to take that advice and buried his face against Dean’s neck, reveling in all the familiar scents and sensations that surrounded him once more, all reaffirming the conviction that despite it all, he unequivocally and irrevocably loved Dean Winchester, and he was so done trying to fight it.

Let the chips fall where they may, praying they do so in his favor.


	10. Chapter 10

They had planned to meet up after school, which ended at two in the afternoon, but when three rolled around and Dean was a no-show, Cas began  to worry he’d been wrong about him wanting him back. Perhaps Dean had just been caught in a moment where he’d seen Cas be at his most vulnerable and hadn’t wanted to hurt him. Perhaps he’d just been acting nice. Dean could be nice. Dean could be _really_ nice. Hell, that’s how this whole damn thing had started in the first place.

At three-thirty, Cas went home, sullen, irritated, and edging into angry; angry, however, not at Dean but at himself for having been a fool for a second time. He’d known better, damn it! Why the hell had he even kissed Dean this morning? Why?? Why had he thrown caution out the window like that? All it’d done since is bite him in the ass.

Just as he was about to make up his mind to basically never associate with Dean in any way ever again, a knock on his front door at four, followed by the doorbell, interrupted. Distracted, for the time being, from making a major decision (and possible mistake), Cas went to the front door and opened it.

His heart froze. Then it dropped right into his stomach.

Dean Winchester stood at his door, looking at him with those damned green eyes, his expression one of apology. Cas lost all train of thought in those eyes, lost all will to be angry at him, and found himself, in the next second, kissing the boy who’d broken his heart. He really was a moron, and yet he couldn’t get himself to stop. Not especially when Dean recovered from his surprise in seconds, wrapped his arms securely around Cas, and held him close, _seeming_ to be just as eager about this as Cas was. It was just all too easy to believe.

Seconds turned to minutes, and Cas started having _thoughts_ ; as the one suggesting he lure Dean into his bedroom crossed his mind, he finally caught up to his actions and jerked away, only barely refraining from slamming the door in Dean’s face if only to pretend this hadn’t just happened again. What was wrong with him?!

Dean was looking partially…drunk, for lack of a better term, and Cas wanted so badly to say he also saw love in that gaze, wanted desperately to believe it was possible, but instead just forced himself to remember that Dean had stood him up after school.

“Where were you?” The demand came out much weaker than he’d intended, sounding less angry and more…curious.

“Sorry, Cas,” Dean replied, expression portraying as such, “my friends caught me and wanted my help with a problem they were having.”

Cas saw those eyes meet his and knew the danger such contact carried so he quickly looked away, at Dean’s shoulder.

“Could’ve let me know,” he said in a quiet tone. All at once he felt…exhausted. Trying to navigate…whatever this was…was exhausting. Part of him didn’t want to fucking do this anymore. Most of him just wanted this fucking agony to end, wanted Dean back once and for all, wanted to go back to the way things were and couldn’t figure out _why that was so damned difficult._

“Cas,” Dean said gently, reaching towards him with a hand, meaning to stroke Cas’ cheek.

Cas didn’t let the touch happen this time. Maybe it’d bring this all to a burning crash, but he needed to force them back into reality.

“What are we doing, Dean?" He braved a glance. "You’ve got a girlfriend, for fuck’s sake! What am _I_ doing?!”

Dean’s expression turned into one of great confusion, rightfully so.

“You’re the one that k—”

“I know, damn it! I wish I hadn’t!”

Hurt appeared.

“Oh. Uhm.”

That hurt only confused Cas further. Dean had left _him_ ; why was he hurt by this?!

He gestured to Dean (eliciting another confused reaction) and said in a whine:

“That, right there! Why the hell are you looking like you’ve just been wounded?!”

“Maybe because I was, Cas. People tend to get their feelings hurt when someone says they regret kissing them.”

Cas huffed and folded his arms against his chest.

“And guess what, Dean, people tend to, how’d you put it, _get their feelings hurt_ when someone breaks up with them out of nowhere.”

 _Finally_ , the anger was back. Anger was good. Anger stopped him from being a total fucking idiot.

At this, Dean’s expression cleared to one of understanding; his gaze turned gentle.

“We should talk about that.”

 _Gee, you think?_ Cas thought.

“May I come in to do so? It’s kind of a thing better done sitting.”

As much as Cas wanted to let Dean in, to have Dean close, and yet want Dean to get as far away from this space as possible, Cas knew they really did need to at _least_ talk about this. Even if it got them nowhere.

“Fine,” he allowed, stepping away from the door and leading the way to the living room. He plopped down on one end of the couch and waited. Dean joined him, sitting with about one foot of space between them.

Neither knew how to start.

Eventually Dean did.

“Look, Cas, I know all of this must be pretty confusing for you. It is for me, too, if that helps any.”

It didn’t. He already knew it was confusing for Dean.

“Thing is, I never actually wanted to leave you.”

Cas had the most bipolar reaction to that. His first one was his heart shooting right for the damned stars having finally heard the words it’d always wanted. His second was disbelief. It was easy to say the words you knew someone wanted to hear. That was another thing…this was all just words. How could he possibly trust them?

“You realize—” Cas started, but Dean interrupted by holding up a hand.

“Yes, I do. But let me explain.”

“But—”

“Cas, do you want to get back together or not?!”

Cas flinched, and took his outburst to mean Dean didn’t want him so much, after all.

Dean knew what was happening.

“No, no, no, Cas, please, angel…” his touch on Cas’ arm sent such a jolt through Cas’ entire body that his brain froze in the middle of its freak out. In these few seconds of vulnerability, Dean dove right in.

“My parents forced me to leave you because they’re hunters. They saw you as they see everything else that’s not human: evil. They delivered the ultimatum that they’d not kill you if I broke up with you. I loved you so much then, Castiel, I just…I wanted you to live. It would be agony no longer being able to be in your life but it’d downright kill me if you died so I did what I thought was the right thing. Turns out they went and blabbed about you to their hunter friends which is what brought Adam here. There’s probably more that know about you, hell if I know, but that also makes their ultimatum void.”

Dean took a breath, and then continued.

“I’m so fucking tired of pretending like I’m fine. I’m not fine. I’ve been dying, bit by bit, every fucking second I’ve had to spend away from you. I’m tired of trying to pretend that I’ve moved on from you. I’m tired of trying to pretend like I have any feelings whatsoever for Anna. Everything with her sucks because she’s not _you_ , Cas. Nothing in my god damned life has any meaning without you. I know they warn about that not being a healthy way to live but fuck them. I don’t care. I love you, Cas. Do you get that?! I fucking need you and I don’t fucking know what to do with that except try like hell to get you back. You’re the only thing that’s ever made perfect sense in my life and I am beyond-words sorry I’ve ruined you like this, but…if you’d let me, I’d love to try to fix that.”

Cas slowly made himself look into Dean’s eyes, scared as hell what he’d imagine there, and surprised when he saw the very emotions burning within that he’d described feeling. Maybe those could be faked but something within him told him these were real. Dean’s words were the truth. Dean was being completely open with him right now; and now the ball was in his court.

And there really was, like Dean mentioned, only one course of action that made any sense:

“I’d like to be yours again,” oh, man those words scare the ever living shit out of him, but it sure was too damn late to back out now.

“Yeah?” hope flooded Dean’s expression and, if Cas was being honest, it was totally adorable.

“However,” he began, and watched, with amusement, as Dean’s expression fell in an instant, no doubt thinking _I knew there’d be a catch,_ “you need to break up with Anna and we need to take this slowly. Probably wouldn’t hurt if your parents stayed in the dark about this, too.”

Dean was nodding already in agreement.

“So,” he began, the question obvious.

_Are we officially back together now?_

“I suppose we are,” Cas answered, hating himself for sounding so reluctant. It’s just logic would not let go, though his heart was nearly spazzing itself to death it was so happy.

Dean beamed at him, scooched over to him, laid a hand on the back of his neck, started to lean in, and froze just before their lips touched, his gaze on Cas', asking for Cas' consent.

Cas answered with the kiss Dean had started to initiate.

Was he scared? Yes.

Was he worried this was going to end badly? Oh, yeah, you betcha.

Was he overjoyed, nonetheless, that he _finally_ got his beloved back? _You have no fucking idea_.

Charlie, however, when she walked in fifteen minutes later on them making out just a bit too passionately on the couch, was not happy, at all.


	11. Chapter 11

Charlie walked into the house expecting it to be empty; whether that meant Cas was elsewhere in town, or just up in his room sulking like usual. She never expected to see two people making out in a manner so…passionate…that they were practically dry humping (it wouldn’t have been a surprise if both them were aroused), and was downright shocked (then appalled) to recognize first that it was Cas, and then Dean. _Dean_ , of all people! As anger settled in, she aimed most of it at her brother. How _dare_ he be so stupid! He knew better! Were the past three months just gone from his memory all of a sudden?! Did he not remember the absolute hell this fucker had put him through?! Did he not care how hard it'd been on her to watch her brother wither away just because of one stupid human? Or was it simply a case of _old habits die hard_? Either way, this was hella wrong, and she, by God, was going to put a fucking end to it. For Cas' sake.

 

Cas would be lying to himself if he said he didn’t sorely want to take Dean to his bedroom right now, despite having _just_ started this relationship over with him mere minutes ago. Yes, he knew wanting sex this fast was fucking insane, and he knew to be smart to at all costs not go down that particular path just yet. But all of this mattered none to his body, which had spent so long desperate for the touches Dean was giving. It wanted them all, the innocent ones it was getting now, and the dirty ones it knew Dean could deliver later on. Cas could feel Dean’s own desire for the same, which is why Charlie’s angry interruption was probably more of a blessing in disguise than an annoying, irksome, pesky interruption. Neither of these two would’ve had the will to abstain much longer; it was just too easy to slip back into their old rhythms, even though things were different between them now and they needed time to recognize that and adapt to it.

Anyway, Charlie made it obvious that they needed to address her presence. He pulled away from Dean (none surprised to find both of them were hard) trying with difficulty to catch his breath before his sister blew a gasket from lack of response.

All he could manage, though, was:

“Sis.”

It was nearly torture how every single miniscule fiber within him wanted to go right back to kissing Dean, at total loathe to no longer be touching him save for Dean’s hand on his leg just a hair too close for Cas to fully relax. It was hard, heh, not to be hyper-focused upon that particular touch right now, which, of course, he knew Dean was doing to him deliberately. Cas glanced at him to confirm this theory, saw the responding grin, and felt his heart take that ever-familiar (and soothing) tumble in response. It was splendid to know this part of them still came easy to both of them.

The problem, however, was how in the ever living fuck was he supposed to resist this? How the hell had he resisted before?!

“Ex _CUSE ME!”_ Charlie bellowed, aggressive in her clapping to try to get Cas’ attention.

He felt annoyed at her, even though he understood why she was acting this way.

“Alright!” He snapped. “You’ve got my attention. What do you want?”

“What I _want_ is for you to get the flying _fuck_ away from the world’s biggest jackass right now! How-no, scratch that- _why_ are you being so stupid? You’re not stupid, Cas! You know better than this! Y-STOP LOOKING AT HIM, DAMN IT!”

Cas, having not fully realized that his gaze drifting back to Dean was wrong (his brain was fried by all the emotions raging around inside him), drew his gaze promptly back to his sister. His annoyance worsened, bordering on anger.

“He doesn’t need to explain anything to you, sis. I don’t, either. This,” he mentioned between him and Dean (noting the thrill it caused within him), “is really not your concern.”

Her hands balled into fists, anger flashing something fierce in her eyes.

“It is when it tore my brother to pieces the first time around. Do you conveniently not remember that, Cas? Hm? Do you not remember the pain, the agony, the heartbreak, the torture he put you through?! He didn’t even give you a fucking explanation!”

“He didn’t then, but he did earlier this afternoon.”

Charlie scoffed.

“And you just forgave him, is that it? Cas, he fucking owed you one _when he was breaking up with you_ , not three months later as a tactic to get you back!” Her attack focused in on Dean now. “And why suddenly did you decide you wanted him back? What about your precious girlfriend? Does she know you’re over here practically dry humping my brother? I’m going to guess no, which means you’re a cheater. Cas, you hear this? You’re dating a cheater. Your judgment is in serious need of repair.”

Dean stood up, no longer tolerating this.

“Listen, you ginger-haired bitch—and I’m sorry to call you that but that’s what you’re being right now—you need to fucking lay off. Especially with Cas. He’s been through hell that, yes, I am the cause of; what he needs right now is love, not a fucking lecture. He is not being stupid, his judgment is just fine. Fact is, I never wanted to leave him in the first place. The only reason I did so, as I told him, is because my parents issued an ultimatum about his very life if I didn’t; his _life_ , Charlie. They’re expert hunters; yeah, Cas is an angel, but far as I know, he’s a young angel, still learning, which means he’s not immune to their tactics so _excuse me_ for preferring he fucking live.

“As for Anna, that was just basically a front. I had to make my parents believe I had definitely broken up with Cas, that I was over him, that they had nothing to worry about now. They didn’t want me with a supernatural being, and they sure as hell didn’t want me to be gay. Adam made me realize, however, that they’d broken their promise not to hurt Cas which voided out their ultimatum. Which is why this," another thrill raced through Cas as Dean mentioned between them, "has started up again between him and I.

“I love your brother with every fucking thing I’ve got and I’m sorry, I truly am, that I ever let someone ever get in the way of that. I’m sorry I hurt him. I’m sorry I caused him agony. I’m sorry I put him through hell. I’m sorry you had to deal with the aftermath of my actions. Even if he comes to fully trust me again, and forgives me, there will always be a part of me that will never forgive myself.

“But listen, Charlie, and hear me well: this thing between me and Cas? It’s far from over. It’s just fucking beginning. You can hem and haw and fight it all you want, but you aren’t going to stop what’s happening between us. It’d be _nice_ if we had you as an ally, especially with the threat of my parents hanging over us, but if that’s too much for you then, at the very fucking least, leave your god damned brother alone about it. It’s his life. If this is what he wants, if it’s what he _truly_ wants, then I will work every damned second to give him everything he deserves. Three months ago, I made a mistake. I made a _huge_ mistake. This is me trying to fix it, so for the love of fucking God, _stop making it harder than it has to be_.”

Dean sat back down beside Cas with a lot of weight, heaved out a sigh, rested his head against the back of the couch, and closed his eyes. His hand sought out Cas’, found it, and intertwined their fingers together; it was an instant comfort.

Cas couldn’t take his eyes off him again. He was in _awe_ of Dean Winchester. He’d never known such passion, and such dedication, lived within this guy. He should’ve known, he supposed, but up until now it’d never been confirmed. Neither had his will to stay with Dean no matter what; with Dean’s speech, the last of his reluctance about reentering this relationship dissipated. Come what may, he was Dean’s until the moment he died, simple as that.

Dean opened his eyes and looked right at Cas, breaking out in a bright smile upon what he saw there. The two said nothing, merely staring at each other with a love that was undeniable. Anyone looking at them saw two people who had given everything to each other with not a single regret about any of it.

Charlie saw this herself, and felt her anger melting away. How could she be so mad when Cas was back where he belonged? Her anger had always been at Dean for stripping away what had been so right, for upsetting what was meant to be. He’d come back, though, had he not? She’d be the idiot to ignore that.

Her heart let out a strong mewl when Dean used his free hand to place upon Cas’ cheek, stroking that cheek with his thumb. Neither said anything still, both lost in the gaze of the other, lost in their own little world, their home.

No, she really couldn’t deny it.

So she sighed and gave it up.

“Alright, you’re right. Cas, I’m sorry.”

Cas, who had just snuggled into Dean’s arms, looked at Charlie with a smile, eyes full of hope.

“Yeah? You’re okay with this?”

“Not that we need her approval,” Dean reminded him gently.

Cas responded with a kiss to Dean’s cheek, looking back at Charlie for her answer.

“I still need time to forgive Dean,” she sent Dean a dark look, “since you literally have no idea what it’s been like for Cas trying to live without you, but,” she looked back at Cas, “I can see that he is without a doubt your mate and I’d be a moron to get in the way so, yes, I’m okay with it. I’m not happy about it right now, but I’m okay with it.”

Cas got up to hug her, thanking her for this, and then for getting him through the past three months. Tears formed unexpectedly in her eyes as she hugged him to her. She guessed the reason for the tears was that a part of her was just beyond relieved that the storm was finally over and that Cas’ heart was healing again.

It'd been too damn long.

 

From there on, it was a little bumpy at first, what with the drama from Dean breaking up with Anna, and then them trying to come out in public about their relationship in a timely manner that respected Anna (who recuperated real fast, actually; it’d appeared Dean hadn’t been the only one the relationship wasn’t really working for), and the fallout from their announcement. Dean being with someone the school saw as a loser was a major blow to his popularity, not that Dean gave two shits about that. He’d never given two shits about that. Why the school had liked him so much had always been beyond him, and once he’d found Cas, it’d stopped being a matter he thought about altogether. But, yeah, other than that, life was good. 

 

_A month later:_

_Thursday, November 17 th_

Cas was happy, actually happy. He and Dean were still doing great, Charlie had finally forgiven Dean and was now their number one supporter…second to Sam, of course. Dean’s parents hadn’t caught on yet, which was good and very lucky. He no longer held any doubts to Dean’s intentions. It was kind of hard to have doubts when the guy absolutely doted upon him every single day, giving him gifts, leaving him notes, touching him whenever he could, kissing him, hugging him, holding him, nuzzling him, whispering in his ear.

Yeah, Cas was very happy.

Until he realized it’d been a month in a rekindled relationship during which they’d had multiple dates and yet hadn’t once had sex. Not _all the way_ , anyway. Plenty of hand jobs during make out sessions but that was as far as it ever went. Come to think of it…it was really only ever Dean who gave the hand jobs. Whenever Cas would try to reciprocate, Dean always said he was tired and just wanted to cuddle.

Now Cas was concerned. Something wasn’t right here, and he didn’t like what logic was saying it could mean. He decided to watch Dean closely for any sign that he was lying to Cas about his feelings, or anything in their relationship.

By Saturday (November 19th), he’d definitely noted that whenever sex was coming into play, and it was obvious Cas wanted more, Dean got him off real good and then conveniently distracted Cas with something else (cuddling, a movie, going out, homework, you name it). Dean had just done it now, while on Cas' bed, suggesting they go bowling as it was a stormy day out and he knew Cas loved to bowl during a thunderstorm.

“Why don’t you want to have sex with me?” Cas asked (as they cuddled) instead of his usual agreement to do what Dean suggested. (He loved the idea of bowling during the storm, though. Maybe they'd still get to do that.).

Dean didn’t answer right away, and Cas immediately started going down a self-hate list of reasons why Dean didn’t want to be with him like that. Dean’s actual answer, though? Shocked the ever living hell out of him.

 

Dean knew Cas was going through a list of reasons, all of them self-hate, as to why Dean didn’t want to have sex with him, and knew all of those reasons were eons from the truth (and also all false). He also knew he owed Cas the truth (obviously), and knew the longer he took to answer, the worse Cas’ list was going to get; Cas sure as hell didn’t deserve to feel badly about himself. Being as perfect as he was? Definitely didn't deserve the hate.

So, he gathered up some courage and said:

“The truth is, Cas, that making love with you is a gift I don’t deserve to have.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be warned. Well, actually "warn" is too harsh. Be...alerted? I guess? That there is smut! at the end of this chapter. 
> 
> (Written, no less, by someone who has NO IDEA how this stuff actually goes, lol. It is a work of fiction so technically how it goes in the story doesn't have to be how it works in real life but I think I got it pretty close. Either way, it sure was fun to write...if also a little embarrassing, lol)
> 
> Enjoy!

Oh, how Cas’ heart heart broke at that. As he sat up and stared at Dean with absolute incredulity, seeing that the guy really believed what he’d said, his heart just snapped right in two.

“Dean, h…wh…”  His brain failed to make words, wanting only to grab his beloved and smother him with affection until he saw his worth, no matter how long that took; he knew it’d take more than that, though. Dean was avoiding Cas' gaze now, staring at his hands in his lap. Cas followed that gaze with his own, then gently rested his hand on top. Dean’s lips turned up at the corners; he must've felt some real, deep love with that touch because he finally looked up and met Cas’ gaze.

“It’s not you, I swear. It’s been wonderful being with you, it always is; it feels right. But, if you recall, I said there was a tiny part of me that would never forgive myself for what I’d done to you last June, continuing the three months that followed. Well, that tiny part, which I thought would just nag quietly in the background easily ignored, it grew. Fast. Every adoring look you’d send my way, every touch, every hug, every kiss, every time we cuddled, it grew. I thought perhaps if I'd started giving you hand jobs that it'd shrink again by considering those gifts to you, and it almost worked, but then you would look at me like _I_ was the angel, every time, and it'd just grow some more. Now it’s drowning me in wave after wave of just pure, black self-hating regret. And I can’t see a damn way out.”

Cas’ heart broke further, aching for his beloved so strongly it was almost impossible to bear. How could he help? How could he get this blackness out of Dean’s heart? If it was a literal blackness, he could miracle it away. As it was, this was purely mental. He knew anything he said would fall on deaf ears, so to speak.

He could at least _try_ , though, he supposed. Maybe if he picked just the right combination of words? Paired with affectionate touches? Maybe that might get through?

He started by taking Dean into his arms to cuddle, both of them resting back against the pillows that were resting against the headboard of the bedframe. Dean accepted the cuddles easily, leaning heavily into Cas’ embrace.

“I need you to close your eyes for a moment,” Cas began.

“Okay,” Dean replied.

Cas checked and saw that Dean’s eyes were closed. Dean smiled but said nothing.

“Now, picture this blackness you say is drowning you.”

Cas couldn’t see Dean’s face, having rested his head against Dean’s now and was staring at the wall opposite to them, but he was sure the smile was already long gone.

“Cas…” Dean’s tone warned he was in bad territory; he sounded scared.

“You’re okay, Dean, listen to my voice. You’re not alone. Now. Let’s see if we can’t dissect this. What specifically do you regret the most?”

“Breaking you when I left you four months ago.”

“Alright, now.” He felt Dean starting to tremble, and went to rub his arm. “Shh, you’re okay. Now, I’m not going to lie to you, and this will make this worse for a moment, but yes, it did break me quite a bit when you left."

Dean tensed up. Cas could practically  _feel_ all of Dean's increase in stress.

“Cas, I really don’t want to do this anymore," Dean said in a shaky breath.

“Dean, you need to deal with this.”

“No, I don’t! If I…just…” he sighed, eyebrows coming together for a moment before smoothing back out. “Ugh, fine, you’re right.”

“You need to accept that you hurt me. Accept that it happened.”

Dean’s breathing started coming out in shorter breaths.

“How the hell do I do that?!”

That was a good question; how _did_ he do that?

When Cas glanced at Dean, he saw Dean had opened his eyes and was staring at him, waiting for the answer.

The answer ran right into him all of a sudden.

“You need to say it to my face.”

Dean looked confused.

“I need to say to your face what I did to you? Isn’t that redundant?”

“It is, but just try it.”

As soon as he went to try, Dean’s gaze slipped to the side, and another piece fell into place.

“You have to maintain eye contact.”

“Cas…”

Ah, yes, there it was: Dean couldn’t deal with the regret because a part of him was convinced that Cas hated him for what he’d done, and he was terrified of the possibility of finding out that that was the truth. Cas _had_ hated him, back when they’d broken up, but that part had healed this past month, and Dean needed to see that, to _really see_ that.

“Trust me, Dean.”

It took Dean several tries to maintain eye contact _and_ get the words out but he finally managed.

“In June of last year, I came to you shortly after school ended and I..." Dean took a breath, "I told you that we...we needed to break up. I never told you why. I just,” his voice faltered, “I knew what it-" his voice broke for a second; still, he continued, "knew what it would do to you, saw it hap-" his voice broke again, "happening as I was doing it, and yet I did it anyway." A dry sob tore itself free from Dean's throat. "I tore your heart, Castiel, which you’d trusted me to cherish and take care of, I tore it right the fuck apart. Like some god damn monster.” Tears formed in Dean’s eyes; he fought them.

Still holding the eye contact, hoping like hell Dean saw the emotions behind what he was about to say next, Cas put his hand on Dean’s cheek and said in a gentle tone:

“You may have torn it apart, but you came back and fixed it back good as new. This past month you’ve shown me a love greater than any love I’ve ever known, even when we were dating the first time. Because this means more now, this between us, it’s stronger. I’m stronger. You’re stronger.

“Because of you, I can love more now. Yeah, you broke me, but what you seem to not be aware of, Dean Winchester, is you also put me back together. You took the time to take care of me. I don’t know if you can see the truth of these words, but you’ve loved me back to life. No part of me resents you; no part of me hates you. I truly have forgiven you, and it’s high time you forgive yourself so we can continue forward. I very much miss my boyfriend and would be delighted if he could come back home again.”

 

Dean half-laughed at the end of that, tears spilling over as he did so. The words worked their magic, though, dissipating all the self-loathing and regret that was drowning him. It was a great weight off his shoulders as his world finally began to clear up. Through the disappearing darkness he finally, _clearly_ saw Castiel before him, filled to the brim and beyond with nothing but the purest love and affection, all for him, and he finally believed it. No doubts clouded his judgement.

Tears, however, clouded his vision, and all of a sudden, he was aware that he was sobbing. Something had let go within him, was rushing its way out now, and he couldn't stop it. Cas held him close until the tears ebbed. When he could see again, Dean gave Cas what he hoped was a kiss that conveyed his gratitude, if not something more.

 

Oh, Cas felt that _gratitude_ alright, and was none surprised when Dean maneuvered his way on top of him. Normally the guy was a bottom, but tonight, Cas knew, he was going to let Dean be a top. Dean needed to be in control tonight, needed to show Cas just how much love he held for him.

It stopped there, however, and even the kissing came to a halt.

“Dean, what—?”

“Do you consent to making love with me right now?” Dean asked, sounding far too formal. It was honestly awkward.

Cas’ eyebrows came together to convey his confusion, even as he answered in the affirmative. Dean relaxed and leaned in to resume the kissing, only to have Cas be the one to stop it this time.

“Why did you ask for my permission? You know you never need to ask.” There’d never been a time when Dean wanted sex that Cas didn’t. It worked vice versa, too; there’d always been a mutual consent and the understanding that if one decided they didn’t want to do this after all, they need only say something and it’d be alright. That hadn’t happened yet, but still, the understanding had _always_ been there.

“I just wanted to be absolutely sure.”

So there were still _some_ doubts left in Dean’s mind.

“Dean,” Cas sighed, words failing again. It was time to show the goof just how wrong he was thinking he wasn’t enough.

He started with a kiss, and immediately let Dean have the reins.

 

Dean was nervous and he hated it. He thought all the doubts had gone but all he could think, with every touch, was that he’d forgotten how to make Cas feel good during sex. It was like he was a virgin in totally new, uncharted territory and, it was scaring him shitless.

He took it slow, kissing at first, then began to move one hand around, focusing on Cas’ hands roaming over his body (down his back, onto his buttocks, back up again…). After a while of this, Dean took a moment to recollect his scattered thoughts, took a breath, and sat up straddling Cas’ lap. Cas stared up at him with such deep, pure devotion, it nearly undid Dean then and there. He very _nearly_ claimed he couldn’t do this and got off, but he stayed his ground. He needed to get through this weird awkwardness he was feeling because he knew, if he could just get those damned doubts to fuck off, he could bring Cas to the point of flying and beyond. He knew the technical _how_ , after all. He just had to get his stupid confidence back on track.

 

Cas was feeling all of Dean’s awkwardness and trying not to let it show that he knew. It was his job to support, to soothe, to continue to convince Dean that he was doing this right. It was almost funny how unsure Dean was now, considering that Dean had been the one to show _him_ how to have sex, way back when. It’d been Dean who’d taught him interesting positions and urged him to do it in places outside the bedroom. He'd been the one to introduce Cas to the wonderful, pleasurable world of sex.

It was also endearing to Cas, seeing Dean this vulnerable; he suddenly realized this was actually a start-over between them. This would be their first time in a whole new way. This wasn’t just sex now. This was a real moment, a special memory they’d always share between them. This was love, pure love.

So Cas smiled up at his beloved, and grasped the edge of Dean’s shirt to lift it off. In that moment, they finally synced up and connected. Bit by bit, as Dean’s clothes began to come off, his doubts melted away. Dean took it from there, falling right back into his usual confident self.

 

It was the love in Cas’ gaze that did it, as Cas reached to take off his [Dean's] shirt. Something about that look gave Dean all his confidence back in full. With each item of clothing that came off his body until he was completely naked before Cas (who was still dressed), Dean was finally able to relax.

He leaned back down for a few seconds of kissing before Cas sat up for Dean to pull his shirt off. Another shared kiss and Dean began to kiss down Cas’ body. Starting with the neck, he peppered kisses down the side of the neck, lingered a little bit at the collar bone, then continued to the chest. There he gently sucked on each nipple, smiling to himself as Cas reacted to that, before he continued down Cas' stomach to the top of his jeans. Dean felt for Cas’ member and proceeded to kiss it through the fabric. Cas let out a little giggle; he always loved it when Dean did this, though Dean had never asked why. He found himself smiling. An abrupt urge to kiss Cas on the lips overwhelmed him; he made his way back up.

Cas let out a playful groan as Dean did this, half-whining:

“No, go back down!”

Dean let out a laugh, stealing the kiss he wanted.

“Your lips were looking mighty lonely, though,” he murmured afterwards, and took great pleasure in watching as Cas swooned.

“You smooth motherfucker, come here,” Cas muttered, sealing his lips with Dean’s once more.

Satisfied after a few moments, Dean went back down, this time unfastening the jeans and freeing Cas’ hardened member in one movement. It was as beautiful as Dean remembered, and he paused in taking the clothes off to give it an amorous kiss.

“Weirdo,” Cas teased, sounding just a hair breathless to Dean's ears.

Dean looked up at him and winked.

“You know you love it.” He got the underwear and jeans off of him, tossed them to the floor, then took Cas’ member into his hand, reveling at the familiar feel of it and the comfort that lied there with the familiarity. Then he took it into his mouth, and delighted at Cas’ response.

 

Cas had known what was about to happen and still it was a shock as the sensation slammed right into his stomach, causing him to gasp out a little “oh” and grasp the bed sheets for a second. It’d been only a month since the last time he’d had sex (with Adam) but _man_ did his body think he’d never had sex at all before.

And then Dean began to move and before he could stop it he was moaning out a long “oh” in response.

He honestly felt like he was going to die from the intensity of the pleasure soaring through him at the moment. Maybe he was hyping it up to more than he was actually feeling but why care at this point? He felt _amazing_. Plus, Dean was doing that damn thing with his tongue and…though Cas hated to think this…oh _God_. He never wanted this to stop (and Dean didn’t until Cas came), but he also couldn’t wait to give Dean this back in return, hoping he would let him (and knowing, deep in his heart, that he would).

 

Dean indeed allowed it, though for a split second he almost stopped Cas before realizing that he deserved this, he absolutely deserved all the love this angel was doting upon him. The moment Cas took him into his mouth, he could’ve sworn he’d never had sex before in his life, a feeling he knew Cas had felt earlier. The intensity of it, which was nothing compared to when, once Cas brought him to orgasm then let themselves rest for a moment, he put on the condom, lubed up, lined himself up with Cas’ hole and eased in. Breath left the both of them and they had to pause for a moment. Both were...astounded.

“We _have_ done this before, right?” Dean had to ask, just getting his breath back. Every nerve felt overstimulated…in a good way.

Cas laughed.

“Unless we both were hallucinating at exactly the same times, yeah we've done this before.”

“Why is it almost unbearable now? But, like, in a good way.” He moved just a little, flexing some muscles, and felt as Cas reacted. 

“I don’t know, love, but I’d sure like for you to start moving again, if you’d be so kind.”

Dean grinned at the heated desire burning in Cas’ gaze.

“Oh, you’d like that, would you?”

Cas’ desire strengthened and Dean needed nothing more. He pushed his entire length into Cas just as slow as he could manage, drew it back out at the same pace (not completely, of course), and went back in, eventually picking up a nice, steady tempo that was already driving the both of them crazy.

“Cas,” he moaned as he buried his face against the angel’s neck. It did nothing to soothe the elevated, borderline unbearable sensations when Cas wrapped his arms around Dean to hold him close. It  _really_ did nothing to help when Cas slid one hand into Dean’s hair and started to moan _more_ , _more,_ **_more_** _!_

Their moans grew louder, Cas egging Dean on into faster and faster thrusts until, just like that, one thrust hit its spot just right and the both of them came at miraculously the same time.

Dean went lax on top of Cas once the strongest point of orgasm had subsided, both of them struggling to catch their breaths. Dean was still inside and knew at some point he’d need to withdraw; the longer he waited the more…tender…it was likely to be. Cas knew this, too, of course.

“Might as well do it now,” he murmured.

Dean realized he wasn’t quite ready to exit just yet, which made Cas laugh and he gave Dean a squeeze with his arms still around him.

“I love you,” he murmured with a dreamy sigh.

Dean met Cas’ gaze, replied in an adoring murmur: “I love you, too,”, and then kissed him. There really would never be anyone else for him, of this he knew with zero doubts; had always known, in fact, the moment they’d met in freshman year.

(Eventually he withdrew and they both fell asleep as they cuddled afterwards, weary, worn out, and so very satisfied.)


	13. Chapter 13

They slept (if you want to call it that) for approximately ten minutes before forcing themselves to admit that they were just too exalted to really sleep. It was then realized, by Dean, that he had to go anyway so as not to tip off his parents, so they got themselves out of bed and into the shower. Once dressed, they ate a snack and then it was to the front door they went, where they parted after one final long kiss.

Alone once more, unable to stop smiling or reminiscing, Cas headed to the living room to try to relax via watching some TV. Which worked; by the time Charlie arrived a few hours later (and with dinner), Cas had pretty much calmed back down to his normal state, greeting Charlie no different than usual.

She started to respond, as her usual, and then froze, looking around the place with suspicion.

“Something is…different,” she claimed.

Cas, not wanting (for some reason he couldn’t identify) Charlie to know…just yet…that he had made love with Dean, made a show of looking around the place himself and then meeting her gaze with his trademark confused head tilt. She didn’t say anything in response to that, just continued looking around trying to figure out what was triggering her suspicion. After a few minutes of this, she gave up with a shake of her head (as if to reset her thoughts) and went to show Cas what she’d brought home. You may be wondering, with them being angels, if they actually needed to eat. They don’t. However, these two have discovered that the action paired with the conversations they shared during was often soothing, having found, also, that several foods had a texture they enjoyed feeling in their mouths. So, they “ate”. (Where the food went when they also didn’t need to use the bathroom is forever a mystery.)

Charlie didn’t figure out the change until school on Monday at the worst time possible.

 

_Monday, November 21 st_

Cas and Dean were waiting, like all the other students, for first bell to ring at 7:55. These two were doing their waiting in one of the many booths in the cafeteria, with Charlie sitting across from them crooning over them as she always did. All it took for her to get what had changed Saturday was catching one single look shared between the two.

She let out a loud gasp as it clicked in her brain, and then way, _way_ too loudly, yelled:

“OH MY GOD, YOU TWO HAD SEX!”

Cas’ heart stopped and he looked at Charlie with an expression that screamed both panic and _what the fuck, Charlie?!._ Dean’s eyes were wide as he froze in place. The cafeteria had fallen silent at her outburst, all eyes on the trio.

For several moments, nothing happened; Cas was the first to thaw.

“Charlie,” he said in a tone chock full of stress, “what… _in the hell_ …was that?”

Dean finally breathed, glanced around them, glanced at Cas real fast, and ended up staring at the table in front of him, his cheeks already bright red.

Charlie was looking very, very excited, practically bouncing in her seat.

“I figured out what had changed! You two had sex! Ack!!” She let out an excited squeak/squeal, doing what many fangirls usually do when over-excited. It would’ve been insanely adorable to Cas (okay, it still was) if she hadn’t just screamed out about a very _personal_ experience to everyone in the cafeteria.

“Okay, that’s great,” Cas proceeded carefully, trying very, very hard to fight the urge to wring his sister’s neck, “but was it absolutely _necessary_ to scream it out loud to what is most of the fucking school?? I mean.” He turned his attention to Dean who was still struggling to handle all the people staring at them, and realized something. “Look at what you did. You gave him anxiety.”

Dean looked up at that, immediately grinning at Cas’ attempt to reference a meme. At Cas’ resulting smile, he saw that Cas had done this intentionally.

“That’s not how the meme goes, hon,” Dean told him, his embarrassment fading as love took over.

“Got you to smile, though,” Cas returned.

Dean looked like a man (okay, a teen) absolutely _drowning_ in emotion that was far too strong for him to handle. All he could manage to do was lay a hand against the back of Cas’ head, lean in, and kiss him. It went on for a bit longer than intended.

The rest of the cafeteria decided to move on, nothing to see there after all.

Charlie's crooning a few minutes later started to seep into their consciousness, reminding them all too much that they were not alone.

“I’m so happy for you guys!!” She repeated for...about the millionth time.

“Why are you so happy for them?” Sam’s voice sounded. Cas and Dean parted to greet Sam with a smile (that they hoped hid their annoyance at all the interruptions) as he slid in next to Charlie, who immediately proceeded to put her arm around him in a friendly manner, and with her other hand gesture between the pair across from them, and say:

“These two finally had sex.”

Sam’s eyes went wide and a brilliant smile lit up his face. Remember, Samuel Winchester was Dean and Cas’ relationship’s number one fan.

“Is this true?!!” He demanded, mostly of his brother.

Dean sighed, realizing there was no point in fighting this.

“Yes, he and I, _not that it’s any of your actual business,_ made love Saturday night. Ya happy?”

Sam’s smile growing even brighter gave them the answer.

_Yes, very happy._

Dean rolled his eyes and buried his face against Cas neck.

“Kill me,” he muttered.

“No chance in hell,” Cas muttered back, resting his head against that of his beloved. In truth, he felt kind of relieved that their two closest family members knew; not so great that the rest of the school knew, and there was _some_ anxiety that this would get back to Dean’s parents, but what could they do? They didn’t exactly have a time machine. It looked like they were just gonna have to let the chips fall where they may and instead focus on enjoying the time they had together as it occurred. He could do that, no problem.

And so, he did.

Things continued to improve throughout the months, holidays went by celebrated with much love and joy. Dean and Cas fell more in love each and every day, every night spent alone got more difficult to bear as such (though they had no choice), each reunion every morning sweeter than the last. Time flew by, and as the two soulmates’ hearts mended and melded, they began to forget about the threat of Dean’s parents.

The breaking point came around May, just as prom rolled around.

Ah, prom. What magical night that had been. Dean had asked Cas to go (no shock to anyone whatsoever) about two weeks prior, doing so out on the football field with rose petals spelling out the message (something Charlie and Sam had helped with), and of course Cas had said yes (which was followed by intense, daring lovemaking performed under the bleachers…they’d gotten a wee bit caught up in the moment). The next day, they’d gotten their tickets, the day after that they’d gone out shopping together (with Sam and Charlie who were going to prom as friends), the days after that spent planning how they were gonna get there, who's house they were going to meet at, etc., and soon enough, prom itself arrived.

Cas had been so nervous, fidgeting with his suit endlessly as he stared at himself in the mirror. Why he had been so nervous, he had no idea, but it didn’t change the fact; that is, until Charlie came in, followed by Dean, who took one look at Cas and practically melted into the floor. Cas nerves flew out the window at that, the last of his tension dissipating as he went into his lover’s arms, right where he belonged.

The night was spent mostly in those arms, one of the happiest nights he’d ever had, ending with them going back to his place. On the stoop where they should’ve been saying goodnight, they took one look into each other’s eyes and knew this night was far from over. Cas led the way inside, going right to his room where they shed their clothes, met at the edge of the bed, and made their way onto it as the first of many kisses ensued.

Deep, slow thrusts followed endless tender touches, all while they couldn't kiss enough. Nothing frenzied about it, nothing hurried, everything was evenly paced and laced to the brim and beyond with the deepest love either of them would ever know. When they came, it washed over them and through them, right to their deepest cores, strong and lingering.

And then they went at it again (after a brief rest), just as tender, just as passionate as the last time. There were no words to describe just how it made them feel; safe, cherished, and whole was as best as they could come up with. 

The only issue was that neither remembered that Dean had promised his parents he’d be home no later than two in the morning. As they clung in the night, lost in their own world, loving each other just as much as they were able, neither realized they had triggered the alarm they’d been so careful to avoid. And why would they? They were happy, they felt amazing, and they were so madly in love. That was all that mattered in that moment.

You know...it really is too bad that morning had to come around and ruin such ethereal beauty.


	14. Chapter 14

The morning after (or, rather, later on that morning since they’d gone past midnight making love), as the sun was shining, filtered, through the thin bluish curtain covering the window behind the bed, Cas begun to wake, feeling overpowered, drowning really, by wave after wave of pure ecstasy washing over him. (Angels could manage to sleep if they truly wanted to do so.)

Dean was still asleep, although as Cas stretched combined with the light brightening the room, he began to wake as well. The pair’s gazes met, followed immediately by brilliant smiles. Just as they were about to kiss good morning, the door to the room burst open and Sam rushed in, followed by Charlie.

Exclamations occurred and a few choice words were said as the pair in the bed scrambled to cover themselves up from the pair standing before them.

“Charlie?!” Cas demanded once he got his bearings, while Dean said Sam’s name.

Together they chorused:

“What the hell are you doing here?!”

Both didn’t miss the look of horrified panic that matched on both Sam and Charlie’s faces.

“You need to get your asses out of bed, _now_.” Charlie ordered.

“Why?” Dean demanded.

“Because, Dean, _they know_. They’re coming!” Sam explained as he went to the dresser and started throwing clothes at them.

“Who knows? Who’s coming?” Cas asked. Dean, however, was caught up and was now getting out of bed (Charlie turned away from him) to get dressed. Cas looked at him, growing concerned. “Dean, what the hell is going on?”

“Cas, get dressed, I’ll explain as you do.”

Cas could see it would be a bad thing to fight this so he, too, got out of bed (Sam turned away from him) and began to pull on clothing. As promised, Dean explained.

“My parents figured out we're together; I forgot that I’d promised them I’d come home last night which, as you know, I never did.”

The pair shared the briefest of grins before Sam shattered the moment.

“Yeah, yeah, obviously, but we need to go _now_.” He joined Charlie near the door as Cas joined Dean (the pair linked hands) and the quartet left the room to make their way to the backyard. All knew they had no time for fleeing but they were going to try to...hell, none of them knew. They had maybe a minute, if that, before the hunters showed up.

“What weapons did they pack?” Dean asked to Sam’s back, as they made their way through the kitchen.

“Angel blades, of course, but also…”

Dean stopped short, looking beyond horrified.

He let out a gasp. “ _No_.”

Sam looked back at him gravely.

“I’m afraid so, bro.”

Cas was confused as ever, so was Charlie, who asked the question:

“What are you two freaking out about now?”

Sam looked at her while Dean looked right at Cas with an expression that broke Cas’ heart.

"Dean, what is it?" he asked as gently as he could manage, fearing the answer.

“The colt,” he said in such a way that if this were a movie and it was raining, there’d have been thunder to enunciate his words.

…As if that explained anything to the angels, though.

“The colt?” Charlie asked. “Guys, I don’t know what you know of angels, but we are not mind readers, we are not all-knowing. What the hell is the colt?!”

“It’s a gun that can kill any supernatural being,” Sam explained. “It’s made…I don’t actually know how it works but I do know that the bullets are specially engraved and I have never seen it fail to kill anything my parents have used it on.”

Cas and Dean were standing close now, staring into each other’s eyes. No, now was _really_ not the moment but fuck, they didn’t care. It was truly now or never.

“I’m so sorry,” Dean whispered.

“It’s okay,” Cas murmured back, feeling as if he should be the one that was sorry (and he was). “Maybe it's okay. There’s four of us and two of them.”

“Those two are trained killers with weapons, while all of us are mere teenagers that are defenseless. Great odds, Cas.”

Cas smiled, and hugged Dean to him, hoping Dean hadn't seen the absolute terror in his eyes just before.

“I love you, Dean,” he had to say.

“Cas,” Dean choked, tightening his arms around the angel, “don’t.” Cas heard what hadn't been said:  _I love you too, so much._

“Guys, this is all nice and everything but they’re here,” Sam ordered.

They took exactly one step into the backyard when the hunters rounded the corner. Dean grabbed Cas and pulled him behind him just as Sam did the same to Charlie.

Their parents wore head to toe all black (why??), with gloves. Each wielded an angel blade, and the father held the gun. They were _not_ pleased.

“Sam, Dean, get the hell away from these monsters,” John demanded.

“Fuck you!” Dean exclaimed.

“Dean!” Sam chastised, exasperated.

“Sam, these two are trying to kill someone I love with everything I’ve fucking got. You can’t honestly expect me to be _nice_.”

“Well, it couldn’t fucking _hurt_.”

“Oh, sure, bitch, you can afford to be nice. You’re not losing anything!”

“If you seriously think I’m not losing something here, jerk, you _sorely_ need to get your head out of your ass!”

A gunshot went off making them all flinch, and then they panicked.

“Cas??” Dean cried out, whirling. Cas checked himself over as Dean did the same, Sam and Charlie also doing so for themselves. Nobody was hurt. Dean, nerves fried now, whirled towards his parents.

“What the hell?!”

“Had to get you two to stop bickering,” Mary explained calmly.

Dean’s breath was heaving out of him; he couldn’t take much more of this.

“Castiel and Charlie are not monsters,” he began, his voice shaky, “ _you_ are. These two are angels. Angels! Angels are the damned good guys!”

Their parents actually laughed at that, and anger set in.

“How can you be so blind?!” He raged.

“Son, it’s not us who are blind, it’s you. He’s fooled you into thinking he’s a good guy. I mean, for Christ’s sake, he actually raped you and you call it love!”

“Rape?!” Cas exclaimed, eyes widening, fear gripping his heart. For a moment, he feared...what if he  _had_ _?_

“SHUT UP!” John bellowed at him, pointing the gun at him (through Dean). "YOU DON'T GET TO TALK."

“NO!” Dean yelled, back in front of Cas, putting his hands up. “PLEASE!”

“Dean, enough of this! Get out of the damn way!”

Dean lowered his trembling hands, forming fists as his will resolved.

“No,” he snarled. “You are not killing him!”

“Son, you leave me no choice.” The gun went off. The bullet rammed into Dean’s right shoulder and stayed there. He gave out a cry as Sam screamed his name and abandoned Charlie to help his brother. Bad move that was; Cas saw that Charlie was now defenseless, and Mary was about to throw the blade.

“NO!” He screamed, wings unfurling as he leapt towards her.

Just as the blade was thrown, it froze suddenly a second later; just the blade, the rest kept moving. Cas landed in front of Charlie and needed a second to catch up.

“Uh, what the hell?!” Mary and John chorused.

Right beside the blade, appearing out of thin air, was a figure both Charlie and Cas knew right away. Their eyes widened as God, appearing in a human male vessel, took the frozen blade and snapped it in half. Without missing a second, he turned towards John and merely had to snap his fingers to dissolve the man’s weapons.

“Dad?” Cas and Charlie chorused.

“Hi, kids,” he replied as he turned to the hunters.

“And hello to you," he greeted cordially enough. You'd never have been able to tell that this guy was  _furious_

“Who the hell are you?!” John demanded.

God looked at them amused. “Why, now, I know you’re not an idiot. You know exactly who I am. However, I will accept being called Chuck if that makes it easier to stomach. Now, let’s settle this like civilized people, shall we? How do you justify trying to kill two of my children?”

John and Mary were stunned speechless. Since Charlie was safe now, and Cas knew God (er, Chuck) had a handle on the threat, he ran over to Dean, who was still conscious, if only barely.

“Dean??”

Dean looked at him, and grinned.

“Hey, honey. Looks like I’m gonna have a cool scar.”

Tears welled up in Cas’ eyes.

“You were…I…this…it wasn’t supposed to be you.”

“Well I sure as hell wasn’t going to let it be you, asshole.”

“Fuck you, Dean! Damn it!”

“Just hold me, you overdramatic angel! It’s a fuckin shoulder wound, I’m not going to die.”

“You couldn’t possibly know that, Dean,” Cas snapped back as Sam maneuvered so Dean could rest against Cas. Cas held the shirt Sam had put over the wound, already soaked far too much for comfort.

“Look, if you’re so damned worried, why don’t you heal me?”

“Because I can’t! The bullet will counteract my power, you fucking moron.”

“I save your life and _I’m_ the moron?! Yeah, sure, love that logic, Cas.”

“Dean, shut the hell up.”

“Why don’t you make me?!”

“BOYS!” God thundered. “If you don’t mind, I’m trying to have a conversation over here!”

The pair shut up, sharing a sulky silence. Sam, who knew they were bickering out of fear of losing one another and deep love, looked down at his feet and tried not to smile. Their bickering was kind of adorable when you really thought about it.

“Now,” Chuck returned his attention to John and Mary, “I take it you’re hunters, yes?”

They nodded.

“Oh good, you _can_ understand me. So. You hunt monsters. But it seems, somewhere along the way, you became…well, basically like Nazis. Prejudiced. You declared that anything that wasn’t human was therefore a monster worth killing. Now,” he stepped to the side so the pair could get a good look at Cas and Dean, who might as well have been cuddling, “you take a good look at my son holding yours over there and you tell me, what exactly makes him a monster? If anything, he’s trying to stop the bleeding where _you_ shot your son.”

“He rapes our son,” Mary muttered.

“Rapes, you say? Really? _That’s_ your best justification? Are you seeing what I’m seeing? Those two are madly in love. I think you mean you’re unwilling to accept that your son, of his own free will, is gay--"

"I'm bisexual!" Dean called out.

God put up his hands in apology.

"My bad!" Chuck returned his gaze to the parents. "Is _bisexual_ and that you’re lashing out at _my_ child for merely loving yours because you don’t like gay or bisexual people, isn’t that right?”

Neither answered.

“Tell me, after attempting to shoot my child, shooting an innocent child in the process I might add, why should I spare you now?”

The fear in their expressions as their eyes widened, followed by meaningless babbling as both scrambled to find reasons to convince this Supreme Being to not kill them was rather amusing. Chuck let it go on for a few minutes and then snapped his fingers to shut them up, and then he fixed them with the darkest, scariest look that only he, God Almighty, could muster.

“Listen, and listen well. I’m going to give you this chance once, only once. Should I discover you try to hurt any of my children again, you won’t get another. You leave my angels the fuck alone. You leave your son the fuck alone. He is happy with Castiel. As is Castiel with him. Those two, though I certainly never saw it coming, belong together. And me-willing, that is exactly how it’s going to fucking stay. Charlie, also will not be harmed; she truly did absolutely _nothing_ to warrant death. You got that?!”

They nodded.

“ _NOW GO!”_ Chuck thundered, pointing at the pair to leave the way they’d arrived. They whirled and ran off. As they scampered, Chuck let out a laugh. “It’s always funny how that scares the ever living shit out of them.” He let out a satisfied sigh. “That was good.”

“Uhm, dad,” Cas spoke up. Dean was unconscious now, the bleeding still hadn’t stopped, and Cas was at his wit’s end. He could feel Dean fading away from him, and he was powerless to stop it.

“Oh!" He came right over. "Oh, of course. Of course. Dean, son, I know you’re in there, so be warned, this is going to hurt.” God snapped his fingers once more and the bullet that had burrowed its way into Dean’s shoulder, ripped its way back out.

Dean jerked upright and screamed out:

“OW!!!”

With the bullet gone, Cas went to heal it, but Dean stopped him, grabbing Cas' wrist just as he held his hand over the wound.

“Wait, Cas,” Dean stated.

Cas glared at him.

“Listen, you assbutt, you are fucking dying. I swear to—”

Dean kissed him.

“Let me finish; Jesus, you’re a mess.”

“Dean,” Cas snarled, his tone screaming  _get to the fucking point!_

“Heal me enough so that I can make it to the hospital and they can continue patching me up.”

“Why?”

With a straight face, Dean answered:

“So I can have a scar.”

Cas rolled his eyes as he groaned. Of course, Dean wanted _the scar_. The _I got shot by my parents_ scar that would be a story told thousands of times to make him look cool.

“Fucking human,” Cas muttered as he set out to do as his beloved wish.

“Not my fault you fell in love with me,” Dean responded, smirking.

His business finished here, as the pair started bickering again while Cas stood and carried Dean bridal-style towards the car to get him to the hospital (followed by Sam and Charlie), Chuck disappeared as suddenly as he’d arrived. All’s well that ends well, eh?

 


	15. Epilogue

Dean’s wound healed exactly as he’d wanted it to, leaving a scar that would stay with him for his lifetime. Every time they made love, Cas would kiss that wound, and doing so never failed to make Dean swoon, loving the angel more fiercely than ever. Cas was mad for a while that Dean had let himself get shot, and then revealed to Dean that it wasn’t Dean he was actually mad at, but himself. They straightened that right out, though.

Graduation arrived on Saturday, June 24th, and both were the loudest ones cheering when the other walked across that stage to get their diploma. After the ceremony, they split for a little bit, Dean going off to hang out with his friends. Cas stood alone off to the side, watching with a full heart, as the love of his life, alive and well, goofed off in a gown that made things just seem…funnier.

Charlie joined him.

“Well, Cas, this is it.  Your mission is completed. You no longer have to stay on Earth. What do you want to do now?”

Cas’ gaze lingered upon Dean for a moment longer before he addressed Charlie with a gentle smile. Both of them knew that she knew the answer already. However, it had to be said. Rules.

"I’m going to stay.” Cas looked back at his beloved who had, at the same time, looked at him, shared a smile, said goodbye to his friends, and was now coming back over. “I’m right where I belong.”

“Do you realize that by doing so, you lose your immortality?”

Cas’ gaze never left Dean’s.

“I get to spend a lifetime with a guy I love more than anything. I’m not losing anything.”

Dean greeted Cas.

“What is it you’re not losing?” he asked then.

Cas smiled at him and shook his head.

“Never mind that,” he said as he proceeded to kiss him, a happily ever after.

Okay, so they ran into a few bumps down the road, but what relationship doesn’t suffer that, ya know? Anyways, you know what comes next.

The end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, Pretties!
> 
> You made it through another work of mine! Thank you so, so, so much for taking the time to read it. Thank you to those that took the time to comment. To those that left kudos. To those that stuck with it as I took FOREVER to update. Y'all are blessings and I know I say this after every story but don't you ever forget how absolutely WONDERFUL and AMAZING and BEAUTIFUL you all are. I am eternally grateful to all of you. 
> 
> Sincerely,   
> Terran R.


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